An answer to this question contains the following thought experiment:
"Imagine two people sitting in cars on a frictionless surface throwing snowballs at each other. Every time person A tosses a ball with momentum ⃗ k → he/she gains momentum −⃗ − k → . When person B catches said snowball, assuming a perfectly elastic catch, he/she will gain momentum ⃗ k → . At the end of this process, A has gained −⃗ − k → momentum and B has gained ⃗ k → . The total momentum of the system is conserved. To an external observer it appears as if A and B have "repelled" each other. How to extend this analogy to induce "attraction" between objects is not clear to me at this time - but let me assume for the time being that it can be done."
I wondered how one might extend this analogy to describe attraction between objects of unlike charge and found an answer to this question that includes boomerangs (conserved angular momentum) in addition to balls (conserved linear momentum) re: electron-positron scattering. I also found this slightly more technical account.
Do these principles scale up such that macroscopic objects of unlike charge seem to attract each other via virtual photon exchange, or is this kind of explanation specific to fundamental particles?
An answer to this question advises against thinking too seriously about virtual particles as per popular science accounts; are such metaphors even less relevant to macroscopic objects or is their macroscopic behavior with regard to charge reducible to fundamental particle interactions?
