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... I just checked some
writings of Einstein, Gamow, Bondi, and Reichenbach. They all take
something like the following viewpoint:
1) GR abolishes the preferred position of the Newtonian class of inertial
frames (the "fixed stars" being one) by allowing an observer to transform
away his (Newtonian) acceleration by taking account of dynamic, covariant
gravitational fields with identifiable sources (including the distant
stars). Here we are transforming away acceleration in favor of gravitation.
Your (more modern?) viewpoint :
2) The only inertial frame worthy of the name is the local free fall frame.
The observer in that frame is neither accelerating nor gravitating.
Departures from that frame are produced by accelerations (relative to
that frame). An observer thus accelerating will see kinematical effects
which will be identical to the effects of a gravitational field, but
this field is fictitious and has no source beyond his acceleration
itself. Here we are transforming away gravitation in favor of acceleration.
-Bob Sciamanda
I stipulate that #2 is a fair representation of what I've been saying.
I'm not quite sure, on the other hand, how you are reading #1. With only
a little clarification, I read it as being completely compatible with #2.
The final sentences do seem to imply an either/or proposition, but I
think that putting acceleration and local gravitation on an equal footing
is the very essence of the principle of equivalence. . . .
-John Mallinckrodt