Consider a horizontal wire loop through which a magnet is dropped. I understand the macroscopic explanation. The moving magnet generates an electric current in the wire loop(counterclockwise when viewed from the top). The wire loop's current then generates a magnetic field in the opposite direction(up). Certainly I have read about the conservation of energy as the 'justification' for this behavior. But from a microscopic point of view I am puzzled about what's going on.
I tried to visualize a screw being turned into a piece of frictionless wood. If I push the screw down, it turns clockwise. If I turn the screw clockwise it still goes down. If I were to make a screw that obeys Lenz's Law, it would have right hand threads when I turn it clockwise it would move downwards. But when I push down on the Lenz screw it would have a tendency to turn counterclockwise.
I read this post
Quantum Mechanics of Lenz's Law?
and even read J.D.Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics chapter 6.6 'Derivation of the Equations of Macroscopic Electromagnetism'
He starts off with the microscopic Maxwell equations. But this just kicks the can down the road. The third equation is:
$$\nabla \times \mathbf E + \frac{\partial \mathbf B}{\partial t} =0$$
The fourth equation is:
$$\nabla \times \mathbf B - \frac{1}{c^{2}} \frac{\partial \mathbf E}{\partial t} =\mu _{0} \mathbf j$$
With these equations, he then goes on to generate time and space averaging integrals to give the macroscopic equations.
I guess I am asking WHY on a quantum mechanical level these two equations are this way. Certainly, I know Feynman's admonition that WHY can be a meaningless question, it really just asks for a substitution of some variables for others. And when there is no data at the level of detail we are looking for, then why is meaningless.
This post seems to come close
Explaining Lenz's Law without conservation of energy
but it talks about the 'flattening' and tilting' of electrons due to Lorentz force?
Some idiosyncratic ('random') ideas that cross my head are
Does a moving magnetic field only affect the spin of an electron according to a left hand rule (in other words translational motion is not directly affected)?
Does electron motion only occur when an electron changes its spin?
Does a magnetic field generated from its spin act to counteract the magnetic field of its motion?
This sounds like nonsense to my conscious thought process because to test it, I would have to be able to fix the electron so it doesn't 'spin' but still allow translational motion. If I could so 'fix' all the electrons in a copper pipe, then a magnet would fall through this copper pipe unimpeded.
Certainly mechanistic ideas were disapproved starting in the late 19th century with the theory and observations of quantum mechanics. So I am looking for an intuitive quantum mechanical explanation of the relationship of an electron and magnetic force.
