Interestingly, to get things to work, lyndon has to throw in the density of electrons into his equation (though as you say, he seems to keep forgetting that). That means that he has the mass of the electron depending on both the value of the Hubble parameter (the current value, of course, since there's evidence that it's changed with time) and the density of electrons. Now, I think it vastly more likely that the parallel is just a numerical coincidence which he's tried to rescue, but that could mean that the mass of the electron could also depend on the density of electrons in the universe. I could imagine Mach liking the latter idea, for example, yet lyndon has just thrown it out as obviously ridiculous.

Isn't circular at all.
The theory derives the hubble constant in terms of a recognised interaction between photons of light and the electrons in IG space.
The theory shows that H = 2nhr/m.
Substitute values for h, r and m along with published values of n (between 0.1 and 10 electrons per cubic metre) and whallah! there you have it - the value of H determined from observation.
But within this formula you have a combination of three constants h, r and m and so I derive 'Ashmore's constant" = hr/m and show that this has a magnitude of 2.1x10^-18. Which is interesting because the average of recent values of H is 64 km/sec per Mpc. turn this into SI units and you have 2.1x10^-18 s^-1.
Now Ashmore's paradox says that this is just too much of a coicidence to be a coincidence. The reason being that we have used these terms in measuring the Hubble constant in the first place. Energy of photon is E = hf. We look at absorption lines in the spectra of distant galaxies to determine the redshift and these are formed by electrons absorbing certain energies of photons.
And then I show that the measured value of the Hubble constant is just a combination of these parameters.
Worse still is that the Hubble time or age of the universe is just the reciprocal of H and so the age of the universe is m/hr in magnitude.
Now I say that this is daft. It cannot be correct. To be a follower of the Big Bang one has to repeat the following crede:
I believe that the Hubble constant is equal in magnitude to hr/m for the electron and it is just be chance.
I believe that the age of the universe is equal in magnitude to m/hr for the electron and it is just by chance.
I believe that a one metre length of space increases in length by an amount hr/m for the electron every second and it is just by chance.
Try repeating this over and over again and see if you still believe that the universe is expanding.
Cheers
Lyndon

I wouldn't use my theory to predict n- the number of electrons in each cubic metre of space, I leave this to others. It is known that 'n' lies between 0.1 and 10 electrons per cubic metre. Try this. That is why I believe in the theory - I derive the formula, put in other peoples values and get the value of H from observation.
Cheers,
Lyndon

Nit picking again CM? There is no fallacy and no coincidence - the only coincidence is in the BB theory. What is this 'constant chosen from thin air? All the terms I use are accepted parameters of thin plasma.
Cheers,
Lyndon

I don't 'throw anything in' - every step of the theory from the photon - electron interaction to the formula for H as H = 2nhr/m is based on scientific fact.
What evidence is there that it has changed with time? Surely this is an interpretation put on the data by the BB theory. The trouble with the bb is that is is like a computer virus and gets into everything, messing it up.
Cheers,
Lyndon

This may be the nearest we will ever get to an admission that Lyndon has no answer to the matter of variable electron mass. It was in the context of variable electron mass that Mursula's lecture notes were introduced, and in that context this is merely a tactic of distraction.

Page 12 of Mursula's notes is fine, and Lyndon doesn't understand it.

Now in fact there can be oscillations of individual electrons in plasma; and this is not something I have ever denied. Individual electron motions do not save Lyndon's effect from being a trivial error, and they have already been encompassed within the analysis of Lyndon's errors given previously. I'll return to this point below.

In the meantime, let's look at the cited notes. The notes in the referenced site do include consideration of motions for individual electrons, but comically page 12 is not such a case. Page 11 introduces the example. It is "cold" plasma, meaning that the particle velocities can initially be neglected...

The analysis proceeds by some differential equations that are hard to transcribe, but can be reviewed by following the link. The equation 1.23 is immediately recognizable as the differential equation defining an oscillation, in which the time dependent variable is n1, or electron density.

This confirms what the physicists have been saying in the thread throughout. The wave being described is not the motion of an individual electron, but an aggregate effect over many electrons, giving a density wave.

If Mursula had been describing motion of an individual electron, the time dependent variable would be position. There are other places in the notes where individual motions are considered, but page 12 is a density wave; a combined motion of many electrons, initiated by an electric field that accelerated many electrons simultaneously.

This means that no; Mursula is not presenting an analysis of individual electron motion on page 12.

We can go further. The analysis on page 12 derives a standing wave, with frequency sqrt(n/(m*eps))*e/2pi. Substituting values gives a frequency of 9*sqrt(n). I derived this myself as I was reading, but it is also given as equation (1.26) Units are SI, so n is given in electrons per cubic meter, and the frequency is in Hertz. Here are the actual numbers used:
If we apply this to the IGM, using 0.5 for n (a value Lyndon needs to fit with his "prediction" of Hubble constant), we get a frequency of a bit over 6 Hz.

That's pretty a low frequency for someone needing to balance up an energy budget!

But more to the point, what difference does it make in an analysis? We have a photon colliding with an electron. This results the electron picking up some momentum and some energy. If there is a 6Hz oscillation as a result, the energy of the oscillation is precisely the energy picked up by increased velocity of the electron. Oscillation refers to the subsequent trajectory under the influence of restoring forces being a simple harmonic motion. But there is no additional energy term The energy of the oscillations is a shift between kinetic and potential energy as the particle moves into and out of the position of minimal potential. The energy at the point of collision is the kinetic energy that we have already been including from the first instance.

I singled this out previously as one of Lyndon's really trivial errors. The energy of any such purported oscillation is already accounted for in the boost to kinetic energy of the electron. There is no other energy term.

This is a comment on Lyndon's vision; not on the validity of the many demonstrations of his various errors.

Lyndon goes on to point out three "errors" in my physics. First, in relation to variable electron mass:
In the context of this discussion, this is obfuscatory gibberish. There is no variable electron rest mass, and Lyndon has no answer to this simple criticism. His invocation of variable electron rest mass was a grossly ignorant error, and the above does not even address the criticism.

Of course we can have energy bound up in motions of particles, be they oscillations or anything else. A quantified analysis shows that Lyndon's proposed energy exchanges are a violation of basic conservation laws. Here is such an analysis, for Lyndon's alleged "absorption" reaction. In this, he proposes that an incoming photon is "absorbed" by an electron, and the electron takes up some momentum and energy as a result.

In order to balance the books, Lyndon brings in a range of bizarre notions. There is variable electron rest mass. This is an error. There is oscillation of the electron. This is already accounted for in the kinetic energy given to the electron. He's mentioned phonons and density waves. They have no impact at this point in the analysis, because there are no other particles in the vicinity. Any transfer of energy to other particles is going to arise from the boost given to the electron, and that is already accounted for. He's also suggested another CMB photon emitted at the same time to "steady" the electron. Fine: I'll consider that.

Consider a visible photon, with wavelength 5000 Angstroms, hitting an initially stationary electron. We'll allow for a fairly energetic microwave photon to help balance the books, by taking up some of the energy, and also giving an increased momentum budget. L is wavelength, p is momentum.
[[Added in edit. Thanks to Lyndon for picking up an error in these numbers. 5000 Angstroms is 5e-7 m, not 5e-6 m. I have corrected the numbers in this post. It's still a contradiction.]]

I'm content to leave this as a plain demonstration that indeed Lyndon has no capacity to handle the distinction between individual and collective motions. For an individual electron in a wire, the thermal velocity is something like eight orders of magnitude greater than drift velocity. Therefore its motion is random thermal motion, and the additional oscillation is swamped in the thermal noise. Looking at an individual electron, you would not even be able to tell if current was flowing or not.

A TV works because it uses billions upon billions of electrons to carry current, and the thermal motions average out to zero while the oscillations remain as the signal.

What Lyndon needs to do, and cannot, is deal with the quantified energy momentum calculations, showing where energy is taken up before and after the interactions he proposes. Even a high school physics student would understand that an energy momentum analysis needs to consider energy, and consider momentum, and quantify both cases before and after. That is the level of analysis to which Lyndon should aspire. Not a lot of silly analogies between TV and rarefied plasma, but a quantified statement of energy and momentum before and after the alleged reaction.

This is flatly dishonest on Lyndon's part.

Cheers -- Sylas

Brilliant!
This is what I love about this site! These armchair 'physicists' who post epic tombs castigating others on their 'lack of knowledge' when they have made one of the most appaling blunders themselves.
Who will be the first to spot Sylas' blunder. The post above is nonsense!
Should we start a thread entitled Sylas' blunder?
Maybe I should donate a prize, mmmmmmm not really feasible, but come on, who can spot Sylas' blunder?
Cheers,
Lyndon

Just DO it. I'm fine with recognizing my errors when they are pointed out.

Like equating plasma to glass?
Why do you keep projecting your behavior on others?

If you spotted a blunder, why didn't you point it out?
Maybe you wish there was an error, but you don't actually understand what Sylas wrote.

If you actually found an error, you would have pointed it out.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

This is a win/win situation for me. I have no stake in any particular outcome, no pride in my analysis, and a long history of making mistakes and learning from them.

My first instinct, based on experience, is that Lyndon really has found a genuine error of some kind. But I've checked, and I can't see it. If it is just a typo, its worth fixing; and if it is a more fundemantal error it's great leverage for me to learn something.

Or Lyndon could have screwed up, again, which would be great for the humour value. Either way, it's good news.

But my respect for Lyndon has bottomed out with this latest farce. What a turkey.

Sylas

Try this for starters.
Can Australians see in the dark? This is in the Infra Red.
What is it they say,
"Let he who is without sin throw the first stone?"
By the way, what time interval have you allowed for the photon electron 'collision'?
Cheers,
Lyndon

No; it's visible light. Visible light ranges from around 4000 to 7000 Angstroms. You may be mixing up Angstroms and nanometres.

5000 nanometres would be infrared, but 5000 Angstroms is blue, verging on green.

In your preprint at your site, in section 5 of your paper, you present a discussion of "light" with a wavelength of 5e-7 m. That's well into the ultraviolet; a curious choice. If you were intending that as visible, you want to use 5e-6, as I have done. This is not an error in the paper, since ultraviolet is still a form of light; but this exchange leads me to wonder if you had actually intended visible light.

Whatever you like. I originally considered the absorption/emission combination as a single interaction, and showed the errors with that. You objected, and wanted me to go into the details. This time I showed the error in your absorption model. Electrons don't absorb light. Light does slow in a plasma, but it is not from "absorption". The absorption model may work in glass, where you have dipoles; but plasma is rather different, and can even have a negative refractive index. This gets into the distinction between group and phase velocities that you were explaining earlier.

Cheers -- Sylas

He is correct (the first time in this argument?). 5.00e-6 m = 5000 * 1e-9 m = 5,000 nm = 50,000 Angstrom.

Curious that you do not see how this statement applies very well to you and cosmology. Have you decided yet whether you are going to keep misrepresenting gravitational lensing measurements of H0 as supporting your theory?

What was that you said earlier? how boring it was that when one points something out to a physicist they realise straight away .....?
try this and click on visible. Wavelength of visible light is around 500 nanometres, or 5x10^-7 m.
As for the time interval anything I like? Well you seem to have zero in your calculations which I do not like. Haven't you said all the energy goes to the electron and then it recoils? For time not equal zero, the electron will start to recoil before it has received all the energy from the electron and this will be transferred to the other electrons etc in our 'average atom'. This part is the energy of the 'new photon' about to be re-emitted.
Just a thought.
I will get on to your other failings as we go along.
Cheers,
lyndon

You're right. My apologies, Lyndon.

5000 Angstroms is the visible, but I converted it incorrectly to a power of 10.

I was, in fact, trying to get the same photons Lyndon used in his paper, from memory, and knew it was visible. 5000 Angstroms is indeed 5e-7 m.

The analysis I presented previously should be as follows:

Um, what? (Added in edit. Do'h. It must be past my bedtime. You were saying this to Lyndon, not to me.)

Cheers -- Sylas

Ignoring the physics behind your model, for the moment, don't you think it rather odd that you get such good agreement?

Given the uncertainty in Hubble's constant, combined with the two orders of magnitude range in the estimate of the density of electrons, don't you find it odd that you get a numerical answer that matches to 2 s.f.?

You're absolutely correct. Thanks. I had the Angstroms right, and screwed up in the scientific notation for meters. I've fixed it up above.

PS. Added in edit. I don't know if this makes me more or less stupid, but I did these same numbers correctly just a few days ago, in this post.

This is a bit difficult for an electron that is around half a meter or more from the nearest other electron/ion/atom. The plasma in between galaxies is very thin.

Transferral of energy or momentum to other particles will take an long time, on these kinds of scales. What you need to do is quantify this alleged transferal. This has been the consistent problem all along; there has never been any quantified energy momentum analysis, except that one which introduced the invalid notion of variable electron rest mass.

I will attempt a first stab at a estimating the of transferral of energy and momentum to other particles shortly

Cheers -- Sylas

Give that man a prize.
Gravitational lensing? To be honest I want to look into this in detail and I thank you for the point and the references. I could just give you a quick response and ask if you have taken the change in 'n' into account around a 'gravitational lens'?
In the meantime though, I am onto it as i like areas where I can show Tired Light works. Biggs at Jodrell bank seems to a lot (good place jodrell bank visitors centre shop too)
Cheers,
Lyndon

That's not really true. You originally were convinced that it was just the similarity of hr/m to H that was important. You still apparently think that's somehow notable, even though since it's only true in MKS units, it isn't actually of significance at all. You then added the term for the electron density to get the units to balance afterward, when otheres pointed out your simple mistake. Moreover, you keep claiming a very close agreement, but that's only if you use 0.6 particles per cubic meter, when you've said that estimates range from 0.1 to 10 particles per cubic meter. So that means that your predicted value of H would be somewhere between about 10 km/s/Mpc and 1000 km/s/Mpc. Hardly close enough to the actual value to call it an enormous coincidence.

And as for scientific fact, of course, others have shown your egregious misuse of phenomena you don't seem to understand, so I won't address them again.

No you have it wrong there Grey.
I have had the relation of H = 2nhr/m since about 1996 but at that time I didn't have the CMB (I have rejection letters to prove it!). I posted the original paradox about 18 months ago?? when my paper was under serious consideration.
I use the paradox to cast aspersions on the Bb because it shows the BB in its true light - rediculous. I don't need the paradox for my theory, never did.
When I first realised that hr/m gave me the same numerical value as 64 km/s per Mpc I was as stunned as anyone. I had the full relation first and was just trying to simplify the 'constant term - hr/m.
Cheers,
Lyndon

Let’s get back to the ‘density wave’. All this is basic wave physics and not directly relevant to my theory.
Once we have shown that a single electron can oscillate then that is as far as we need to go – it can therefore absorb and re-emit photons. Ashmore’s Tired Light theory works.
So what have you got here then Sylas? I will tell you.
As in all waves the particles perform SHM, one particle oscillates, sets the next one oscillating and so on. However there is a phase lag between one particle and the next and it is this phase lag that produces the wave profile or in your case, the ‘density wave’.
Each electron has its own ‘natural frequency’ of oscillation in the plasma and this is what you have worked out with your sums as being 6Hz. You could have saved yourself the trouble and just looked it up.
Now there is a certain resonant frequency and if the electron is forced into oscillation at this frequency (6Hz in your case) this oscillating electron causes all the other electrons in the plasma to oscillate and hence we get your standing wave.
So if our photon of light from a distant galaxy has a frequency of 6Hz (highly unlikely) then it will be absorbed by an electron which will be set into oscillation. Resonance occurs and the whole plasma is set into oscillation. Since the energy has been distributed between all the electrons in the plasma we cannot get it back – the photon has been absorbed never to reappear.
However, for photons of light with a much higher frequency than this, the photon is absorbed, the electron set into oscillation but resonance does not occur. The energy remains with our electron (apart from the bit lost in recoil) and is re-emitted as a new photon.
Papageno and I have been through this before. Think of a mass on the end of a spring and waggle the top end. Your hand is the electron being waggled by the photon, the spring is the electrostatic forces and the mass is the whole plasma. At one certain frequency the mass will be set into oscillation and energy will be transferred from your hand to the mass. Resonance occurs. Your hand doesn’t get the energy back – it is lost to the mass at the bottom of the spring.
Now waggle your hand at a frequency well above the natural frequency of the mass spring system. The mass has not had time to respond (because of its inertia) before your hand starts moving the other way. Your hand does work in squashing the spring and then gets it back when the spring ‘unsquashes’. The mass does not oscillate, no energy is lost from your hand. It is the same with our electron in the plasma – since it has not transferred any energy to the ‘mass’ (whole plasma) then it can re-radiate the energy. So our photon is absorbed and re-emitted as it travels through the plasma.
An electron that can oscillate can absorb and re-emit photons. That is all I have to show for my theory to work, and I have shown it.
Cheers,
Lyndon

Wrong.
That is plasma physics, and it is directly relevant to your "theory".


Wrong.
You are still confusing the motion of a particle with the collective behavior of all particles.


Wrong.
The plasma frequency depends on the density, and is the same for all electrons in a plasma because it is a collective effect.


The oscillation does not start with one electron.

What is the wavelength corresponding to 6 Hz?
About 50000 km: over a distance of 10000 km the electrons in a plasma see only a uniform electric field, that oscillates in time.
It is not one electron inducing oscillation on other electrons: they oscillating together.

You forgot to mention that the barycenter of the positive charge density does not coincide with the barycenter of the negative charge density.
The whole plasma behaves as a big electric dipole.

Without losing energy (hence no red-shift), if it even hits an electron.
With 0.1 - 10 particles per m^3, a photon could fly through the plasma without ever hitting any particle.

You have just shown that a photon that scatters on an electron would not lose energy, because the energy cannot be transfered to the other particles in the plasma.
So, why have you been arguing for so long that the photon loses energy?

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

Frankly, I find that difficult to believe, since your website talked about the extreme importance of the relationship H = hr/m, but never mentioned the derivation of H = 2nhr/m until September, 2004, after your simple error had been pointed out here on the BABB.

Then why have you made such a big deal out of it over the years? Especially since you must know that, since it relies on doing your measurements in MKS units, it can't be of any significance whatsoever. Of no more importance than the website I linked to earlier in the thread that shows the speed of light "calculated" from a brief passage in the Koran.

There has never been any error and so it could hardly have been pointed out to me. In any case this board was not the first I posted on. I stayed here because it is the best and between the insults I do receive some good feedback on how to present my theory.
If you find it hard to believe, tough.

I make such a 'big deal' of it because it is yet another nail in the BB coffin. My theory is all about electrons and plank constants so it is no surprise when one finds a relationship between H and hr/m.
In the BB, they use the plank constant and the electron to measure H but it is not in their theory, so it is a big problem for them.
By the way, I passed on that link to angels and the speed of light and the Qur'aan to my Muslim colleagues. They said it was interesting but wrong.
Apparently , angels travel faster than light!
A better quote is chapter ath-Thaariyaat.
"I built the heaven with power and it is I, who am expanding it"
Qur'aan, 51:47
Is this a coincidence too?
Cheers,
Lyndon

Yes is the honest answer.
I had done my calculations and come up with H = 2nhr/m and decided to work out the magnitude of hr/m. I had H = 64 km/s per Mpc from papers but since Ned Wrights cosmology tutorial said that the supernova data gave dramatic proof of the Hubble law with H = 64 km/s per Mpc I was using this as my base. As a physicist I work in SI units so I had H as 2.1x10^-18 s^-1 already. I already had the 'n' values but spent the next few weeks trying to fathom out if I had done anything wrong as whilst I had a relationship between H and hr/m it should have not been exact to two sig figs as you say. If you think it strange, just think what I felt like since, as far as I know, I was the first to see it.
Cheers,
Lyndon

papageno wrote

Wrong.
The density of electrons determines the size of the restoring forces acting on individual electrons and hence the frequency of oscillation of the individual electrons.


Are you saying that a single photon collides with the whole plasma at once? ridiculous!

I didn't forget anything. What you have written is for the resonance case when the frequency of the photon is 6Hz. We can discount this situation.

I use experimentally determined collision cross sections and show that the mean free path is about 70,000 light year. The photons make many collisions.

Because once they can absorb a photon they will recoil and redshift.
Cheers,
lyndon

Are you honestly still claiming then, that it's meaningful to compare H (a value with units of inverse time) with hr/m (a value with units of length cubed times inverse time)?

Perhaps you would be wiser not to make such a big deal of a mistake from someone else when your own posts and website are riddled with them. My respect for you has dropped considerably after this post.
Can I remind you of what I said on page nine of this thread and which you completely ignored:
I know I have made enough mistakes in my own posts here, so I usually don't gloat too much when I spot them in other peoples' posts, but you are asking for it. Your arrogance seems to be boundless.

__________________
Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

It does seem rather strange, though. For example, the value of H that the Particle Data Group quotes (which as far as I'm aware, is considered to be the best estimate) is
72 +- 3(statistical) +-7(systematic) km/s/Mpc
which would seem to have a potential 1sigma error of 10%.

Obviously this is a different value to the one that you are using, but as you don't quote an estimate of the error on your value, I'll assume a similar 10% 1sigma value. (A bit iffy, but you work with what you've got. )

Now it's a bit difficult to know how to treat the electron density, as you say that estimates range from 0.1 to 10 electrons/m^3.

Do you have an estimate of the error on the value that you have used?If you have then we can use this to do a simple error analysis and work out the probability that you managed to obtain a match to within 2 s.f.

Lyndon speaks of an absorption reaction between a photon and an electron in a rarefied plasma. I claim that this reaction is physically impossible.

The energy and the momentum of a photon cannot be taken up by an electron. I've considered the case of a visible photon (5000 Angstroms) colliding with a stationary electron in a plasma with a density of around 0.5 electrons per cubic meter (and hence the same number of protons), and a temperature of around 100,000K. This is in the ball park for the thin ionized gas of the intergalactic medium.

The photon has an energy of about 4e-19 J, and momentum of around 1.33e-27 kg m/s. The calculations can be found in this post.

The fundamental problem is that an electron needs a velocity of around 1e6 m/s to account for that much energy, and a velocity of around 1.5e3 m/s to account for that much momentum. How can the books be balanced?

Lyndon has proposed several solutions.

• Variable electron rest mass, in this post. This is merely silly. There is no such thing.
  
• Emission of a CMB photon to "steady" the electron, in this post. The CMB photon, with a wavelength of around 1e-2 to 1e-4 m, has an energy of less than 2e-22 J, and momentum of less than 7e-31 kg m/s. This is not near enough momentum or energy to make any difference. It is more than three orders of magnitude too small.
  
• Oscillations of the individual electron, in many posts. This is already accounted for in the boost of momentum and energy to the electron described already. Oscillations deal with what comes after, as restoring forces are applied.
  
• Transfer of momentum and energy to other particles in the plasma, by density oscillations or phonons.

This fourth case has not been looked at numerically as far as I can see. Most folks are quite happy to observe that with a particle every cubic meter or so, this is obviously just silly. And so it is; but putting numbers on it can help show how silly it it..

I'm not good at plasma physics, and so I'm going to have to apply some very crude approximations. Fortunately, Lyndon's errors are so enormous that crude approximations are all that is needed; but anyone who can propose a better quantified analysis, please speak up.

I propose to look at this notion of involving other particles from the rarefied plasma. Does it have any hope of balancing the books? To tell, we need to apply some numbers. Lyndon is no help to us here, since he's never attempted a quantified analysis that actually calculates the interactions with other particles in the plasma.

The other particles in the plasma interact with each other by virtue of electromagnetic forces. Consider the particles at a distance r. They will exert a force of magnitude e^2/(4pi*eps0*r^2). If we consider a small increment dr, the volume of the shell is 4pi*r^2*dr, and has a number of charged particles 2n times the volume, where n is the electron number density.

To get a strong upper bound on the possible effect of other particles, I'll ignore the fact that forces are pulling in different directions, and merely add up the magnitude of forces for each particle. The sum of force magnitudes from this shell is e^2*2n*dr/eps0

If there is a plasma physicist who knows how to calculate the forces likely to be experienced by a particle displaced within in rarefied plasma, by all means speak up and give the correct formula. The real force will be much smaller than what I am calculating; so I am only doing a very generous upper bound.

Particles beyond the Debye length "L" are effectively shielded. We can integrate r from 0 to the Debye length, to get a sum of force magnitudes of e^2*2n*L/eps0

The Debye length is sqrt(eps0*kT/ne^2), which is about 31 kilometers. Because of their mobility, electrons are the major contribution to shielding, so I only use the electron number density here. Substituting, we get a sum of magnitudes 2*e*sqrt(nkT/eps0), which is around about 9e-23 N

Lyndon has asked how long this "absorption" interaction lasts, but has failed to actually give an answer himself. I'll pick a really generous time. Let's use about the time it would take a photon to get to the next particle in the plasma. This is 3.33e-9 s

Over this time, the sum of forces, multiplied by time, is 3e-31 Ns. This is a momentum term. We cannot possibly hope to transfer more momentum than this to other particles in the plasma. This upper bound is still more than three orders of magnitude too small to balance the books on momentum.

Let's pick a distance for this interaction. A photon moves a meter in the time given, so we'll use a meter. The sum of forces, over this distance, comes to 9e-23 J; again more than three orders of magnitude less than what is required to balance the books.

Therefore transferring momentum and energy to other particles in the plasma is not physically possible as a way of balancing the books on the alleged absorption reaction.

Note that in real physics, the transfer to other particles can be treated as a separate effect in any case. It is not a distinct term for energy and momentum added into a collision analysis. In real physics, energy and momentum of the original collision is balanced with the particles that are involved at the time of the collision, and other subsequent interactions are involved in the propagation of effects through the rest of the plasma. All interactions must individually conserve energy and momentum.

But since Lyndon has decided to speak of transfers to other particles as a way of balancing the books on the absorption reaction, it is worth pointing out just how far this fails to deal with the magnitudes involved.

To truly address the problem of energy and momentum, Lyndon would have to stick to one story about how energy and momentum is distributed, and back it up with numbers.

Here is my working. As usual, I recommend that anyone in any doubt on this matter check the numbers for themselves. The real benefit in looking into crank science is not gained by trusting one side or the other, but in doing some analysis yourself to confirm who is making the errors.

Cheers -- Sylas