Cosmological Redshift Without Metric Expansion: A Relational Scale Interpretation

This preprint presents a kinematic alternative to the standard interpretation of cosmological redshift. Instead of metric expansion, redshift is interpreted as a relational scale difference between emission and detection frames in a static spatial geometry. The framework introduces a dimensionless scale field Ω(x,t) while preserving local consistency with special and general relativity and the invariance of dimensionless constants. The paper discusses implications for time dilation, Tolman surface brightness, angular-size relations, the cosmic microwave background, and dark energy. Its central falsifiable prediction is a strictly vanishing cosmological redshift drift under uniform exponential scale evolution. Version 1.2, revised March 2026. Preprint - not peer reviewed.