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Relativity without miracles

Sus, Adán (2020) Relativity without miracles. [Preprint]

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Abstract

It has been claimed, recently, that the fact that all the non-gravitational fields are locally Poincaré invariant and that these invariances coincide, in a certain regime, with the symmetries of the spacetime metric is miraculous in general relativity (GR). In this paper I show that, in the context of GR, it is possible to account for these so-called miracles of relativity. The way to do so involves integrating the realisation that the gravitational field equations (the Einstein field equation in GR) impose constraints on the behaviour of matter in a novel interpretation of the equivalence principle, which dictates the determination of local inertial frames through gravitational interaction. This proposed explanation of the miracles can also deal with the problematic cases for attempts at explaining them in the context of the standard geometrical perspective on relativity theory.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Sus, Adánadansus@fyl.uva.es
Additional Information: Accepted for publication in the European Journal for the Philosophy of Science
Keywords: General Relativity; Spacetime Symmetry; Dynamical Symmetry; Equivalence Principle; Miracles of Relativity; Dynamical Approach
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Depositing User: Dr. Adan Sus
Date Deposited: 15 Sep 2020 14:34
Last Modified: 15 Sep 2020 14:34
Item ID: 18102
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Date: 2020
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/18102

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