Re: alternative cosmology: the arp-narlikar's variable mass theory

I have not studied the Arp/Narlikar model in any detail, but my understanding is that it is set in Minkowski space-time and, as you say, particle masses are hypothesised to increase with their age. Hence looking at distant galaxies, we see them at an earlier epoch, and their light is produced with longer wavelengths, due to the different particle masses rather than expansion as it is in the conventional cosmology.

In this picture, the distance of a typical galaxy at redshift z would, I think, be:

r = c x T0 x (1-1/sqrt(1+z))

Where T0 is the "age" of our galaxy, and presumably the age now of most of the galaxies we see.

Then, to explain very high redshifts associated, for example, with quasars, one has to assume that these objects are made of intrinsically "younger" particles, so that in their case this relation between distance and redshift breaks down.