Fletcher, Samuel C. and Weatherall, James Owen
(2022)
The Local Validity of Special Relativity, Part 1: Geometry.
[Preprint]
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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The Local Validity of Special Relativity, Part 1: Geometry. (deposited 23 Jun 2022 11:47)
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