Magnetic and mechanical Faraday effects

Larmor’s theorem expresses the analogy between the motion of a charged particle in a homogeneous magnetic field and the motion in a system in uniform rotation. This analogy suggests that effects of a magnetic field may have a rotational counterpart. We discuss the differences and the analogies between the magnetic Faraday effect and the analogous effect induced by a rotation of the sample. A central issue is to what extent the macroscopic rotation of a material system is communicated to the wave functions of the electrons in the system.