Gah. Unfortunately you're right about that.
That's what I get for quickly responding before coffee in the morning.
Yeah...know that feeling. Mmmmmm....caffeine.
Presumably it would need to impart some amount of it's kinetic energy to one or more electrons. I'd personally expect some deflection.
I'd be interested to see what the minimum deflection would be and the effects that should have on images over significant distances (millions of light years). That'd give you a benchmark to satisfy.
In terms of the blurring aspects, I would expect that would depend on where and how most of the deflection(s) took place, whether they occurred close to the source (in the solar atmosphere) or somewhere far from the source. Birkeland's solar model was essentially a cathode in space with the greatest concentration of electrons located closest to the solar surface.
Should be easily measured then, depending on solar position, since the light coming from distant galaxies could reach us without passing closer to the sun....the difference between that and that reaching us through the closer densities to the sun's surface should be observable at almost any frequency...
In terms of density of electrons in space, pretty much EVERY EU model of the universe predicts more of them than standard theory. More importantly, current observations of the density and layout of mass have failed to come up with MOST of the actual mass of the universe so that's not much of an argument from my perspective. In fact, the mainstream need for "dark matter", and the implication they simply didn't find most of it yet, makes this model more attractive IMO.
They do predict more, but not
enough more...and now you're also appealing to as yet unobserved matter to support your theory...shall we call it "dark"?
(NB: this is a joke, but since we do have mathematical constructs of weakly interacting particles to potentially explain dark matter, and possible experimental detection of them already, we'll just have to wait a few months...it'll probably be next year once the Higgs hoopla dies down, because it looks very much like that just got found).
I'll be the first to admit that the METHOD of scattering that he's proposing has NOT been verified, and according him at least it CANNOT be verified due to the distances involved. I'm not convinced that's necessarily the case however. It seems to me that we should be able increase plasma density (ion density) and electron density high enough on Earth to be able to "test' some of these concepts in pure experiments on Earth, or inside our own solar system.
I agree it should be testable. Given the distances involved, the scattering should theoretically be greater and so more observable, and not less, but I need to reread what he said (I got stuck at his early maths which still makes no sense to me at all).
I will however grant you it's a current weakness of the theory, but there's only ONE undemonstrated claim to worry about, not three! That alone is 'better" IMO. The fact that high ion density and higher electron density might be used to test the idea is a bonus. At least he's not CREATING NEW PARTICLES/ENERGY to worry about, and it's presumably a PHYSICAL reaction between things that show up in the lab. That means it COULD be tested in theory at least. Again, that's "better than" mainstream theory.
Well, it's a pretty fundamental weakness, that's the issue. When the first equation in a paper is wrong it shoots the rest out of the water almost regardless of any truth contained within, and a lot of what he has written derives from that mistake.
Dark matter really doesn't 'create' a new particle, it just postulates one we haven't found yet (maybe). Dark energy isn't a particle, and in some senses...isn't quite an energy either. I'm not a huge fan of the term since it has implications that are confusing. I'm an even less of a fan of the term 'teleportation' in terms of quantum teleportation, because as we can see from this thread, that's even more misunderstood...
Apparently my "religion" is just fine with the universe exactly as it happens to exist. For a number of reasons, I still tend to favor an expanding/moving universe, but I'm totally fine with the idea of a static and eternal universe too, in fact such a model would probably make more sense in the context of my personal 'religion'.
My gut is if you're going to say that God created the universe, creating one that's infinite and eternal is
far more mysterious and impressive than one that's
not eternal in both directions, which is why I find Genesis a little strange.
It's so human, so constrained, so fallible. If it just said "God did something that's beyond your comprehension and beyond this page, and that's why we're here, so quit asking as you're never going to understand" there'd be no major argument to be made against it (no falsifying either of course, but it'd be much harder to come at it).
You'd be able to explain anything with the Bible. It's the the endless justification literalist YEC's use for the Bible, trying to find evidence for the flood, and so on and so forth, that just seems so silly and unnecessary in justification of a truly divine creator...
But I'm playing (for want of a better word) devil's advocate...
