We argue that dark matter (DM)and dark energy phenomena associated with galactic rotation curves (RC’s), X-ray cluster mass profiles, and type Ia supernova data can be accounted for via small corrections to idealized general relativistic spacetime geometries due to disordered locality. Accordingly, we fit the HI nearby galaxy survey (THINGS) RC data rivaling modified Newtonian dynamics, Roentgen Satellite/Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ROSAT/ASCA) X-ray cluster mass profile data rivaling metric-skew-tensor gravity, and SCP Union2.1 SN Ia data rivaling $Λ$ CDM without nonbaryonic DM or a cosmological constant. In the case of DM, we geometrically modify proper mass interior to the Schwarzschild solution. In the case of dark energy, we modify proper distance in Einstein–de Sitter cosmology. Therefore, the phenomena of DM and dark energy may be chimeras created by an errant belief that spacetime is a differentiable manifold rather than a disordered graph.

This essay received an Honorable Mention in the 2016 Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation.

Keywords:

PACS: 95.35.+d, 95.30.Sf, 95.36.+x, 04.90.+e

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