Charged Particles Are Prevented from Going Faster than the Speed of Light by Light Itself: a Biophysical Cell Biologist’s Contribution to Physics

Investigations of living organisms have led biologists and physicians to introduce fundamental concepts, including Brownian motion, the First Law of Thermodynamics, Poiseuille’s Law of fluid flow, and Fick’s Law of diffusion into physics. Given the prominence of viscous forces within and around cells and the experience of identifying and quantifying such resistive forces, biophysical cell biologists have an unique perspective in discovering the viscous forces that cause moving particles to respond to an applied force in a nonlinear manner. Using my experience as a biophysical cell biologist, I show that in any space consisting of a photon gas with a temperature above absolute zero, Doppler-shifted photons exert a velocity-dependent viscous force on moving charged particles. This viscous force prevents charged particles from exceeding the speed of light. Consequently, light itself prevents charged particles from moving faster than the speed of light. This interpretation provides a testable alternative to the interpretation provided by the Special Theory of Relativity, which contends that particles are prevented from exceeding the speed of light as a result of the relativity of time.