Smooth Quantified Framework (SQF)

We introduce SQF, a framework in which all fields—electromagnetic and gravitational—propagate on a single, universal light cone whose effective speed depends on the large-scale, covariantly smoothed matter density. In cosmic voids the propagation speed attains a baseline value higher than the speed measured in our matter-rich neighborhood; the laboratory value therefore reflects propagation in a dense environment, not in voids. Late-time cosmological distances are matched without dark energy by a bounded density-driven modification of the background geometry tied to FRW-slice statistics of the smoothed matter field (a backreaction-style replacement for dark energy), while retaining cold dark matter. Under standard lens-plane smoothing, image deflection angles remain as in General Relativity, but arrival-time delays are rescaled by a path-dependent factor set by the line-of-sight environment. The framework is falsifiable: it predicts environment-correlated shifts in strong-lens time delays, affecting electromagnetic and gravitational-wave signals identically.