system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If you shifted enough electrons through a ring-shaped electrical circuit, would the mass of the moving electrons ever produce rotational thrust?

All there in the title! Dropped out of science after high school chemistry, so that's why I am asking such a silly question.
gpt
The mass of electrons would probably never do it, just because there's a factor of 1836 between the proton mass and the electron mass. So, for metals with at least 20+ nucleons, for each metal nuclei, you'd need 400 electrons to have about 1% as much mass. An easier way to induce a torque would be to simply apply a magnetic field through the ring by ramping it up, inducing a current, and thus the electrons will rotate in one direction, the metal will rotate in the other direction, and the net rotation will conserve momentum and generate the appropriate counter magnetic field. So long as the magnetic field in the loop is changing, a current will be induced in the ring.