FLAT SPACETIME COSMOLOGY - A UNIFIED FRAMEWORK FOR EXTRAGALACTIC REDSHIFTS

It is known that the standard Friedmann cosmology with k = 0 can be described equivalently in a conformal frame in which the spacetime is Minkowskian but all particle masses uniformly scale with epoch. In a Machian theory of gravity this spacetime dependence of mass is understood in terms of inertial interactions. This picture is shown to be more versatile than standard cosmology because it allows one to interpret objects of anomalously high redshift to be '' young '' objects whose particle masses are lagging behind the universal mass function. We discuss here a variety of extragalactic phenomena within the framework of this model and show that these can be understood without recourse to adjustible parameters such as evolution, cosmological constant, etc.