Submitted by starfyredragon t3_zmt3lg in askscience
Weed_O_Whirler t1_j0h98fa wrote
Reply to comment by alukyane in Does rotation break relativity? by starfyredragon
A truly uniform gravitational field is inertial, yes. But those don't really exist (we say, for instance, that on Earth the acceleration due to gravity is -9.8 m/s^(2) but there is a slight height dependence on it). So, things in free fall (without air resistance- including orbits) we will say they are in "locally inertial" frames. But even in the ISS, there will be slight tidal forces acting on you- aka, the side closer to Earth will have ever so slightly more gravity than the side further away.
alukyane t1_j0hbl7w wrote
Ok so then what is measurable is local variations in acceleration, not some global acceleration relative to all inertial frames.
And sure in reality uniformly-accelerating frames don't actually exist, but that also includes the zero- acceleration case, since there's always some galaxy far far away applying a force...
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