A proposed theoretical basis for a MOND cosmology: I. The inertial frame

This first of two papers is a speculation on the nature of Mach's Principle, derived from the formulation of two questions: (A) Can a globally inertial space and time be associated with a non-trivial global matter distribution? (B) If so, what are the general properties of such a global distribution? The answers are yes subject to the condition that mass is distributed fractally with D=2. Such a prediction is supported, for example, in Joyce, Montuori, Labini astro-ph/9901290. The second paper then shows how gravitational phenomena arise as consequences of perturbations of this equilibrium D=2 distribution, and applies this theory to spiral galaxy dynamics. Specifically, the second paper derives a gravitational model for an idealized spiral, defined to have perfect cylindrical symmetry. One of the main results of this analysis is that, *in the disc*, V_rot = A/R^alpha where (A, alpha) are constants which vary between spirals. See astro-ph/0107305, which concludes that a power-law model is powerfully confirmed for ORCs as a statistical generality over large samples, and astro-ph/0107300 for new phenomonology discovered via this analysis. Thus, unlike MOND, we have only been concerned with model predictions made for idealized matter distributions, and tested over very large numbers of ORCs. But, like those of MOND, the predictions are very powerfully supported on the data. For this reason, we hypothesize that perspectives of MOND are buried within our own formalism. This remains a topic for future work.