Fletcher, Samuel C. and Weatherall, James Owen (2022) The Local Validity of Special Relativity, Part 1: Geometry. [Preprint]

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Abstract

In this two-part essay, we distinguish several senses in which general relativity has been regarded as "locally special relativistic". Here, in Part 1, we focus on senses in which a relativistic spacetime has been said to be "locally (approximately) Minkowskian". After critiquing several proposals in the literature, we present a result capturing a substantive sense in which every relativistic spacetime is locally approximately Minkowskian. We then show that Minkowski spacetime is not distinguished in this result: every relativistic spacetime is locally approximately every other spacetime in the same sense. In Part 2, we will consider "locally specially relativistic" matter theories.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Fletcher, Samuel C. scfletch@umn.edu 0000-0002-9061-8976 Weatherall, James Owen weatherj@uci.edu
Keywords:	general relativity, special relativity, normal coordinates, flatness
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Depositing User:	James Owen Weatherall
Date Deposited:	23 Jun 2022 11:47
Last Modified:	23 Jun 2022 11:47
Item ID:	20781
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Date:	2022
URI:	http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/20781

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