I think General Relativity is based on the idea that a frame of reference that's in freefall is equivalent to one that in a gravity free region of space (at least that was one of Einstein's Gedankenexperiments that led him to his theory of GR).
Having said that, in reality a sufficiently strong gravitational field will cause a tidal effect, which will crush you along one axis and pull you apart along another.
There was definitely something like that - I am not sure if free-fall and being accelerated in a gravitational field are the same though. It may be that GR is talking about moving along lines in space-time that have the same gravitational potential (orbits), and moving across potential lines counts as an accelerated frame of reference in which you wouldn't observe the same as in a reference frame moving at constant speed.
I was thinking of the Equivalence Principle:
the equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass, and Albert Einstein's observation that the gravitational "force" as experienced locally while standing on a massive body (such as the Earth) is the same as the pseudo-force experienced by an observer in a non-inertial (accelerated) frame of reference.
okay, but that would be an accelerated frame of reference, not equivalent to one that is "gravity free"
I think General Relativity is based on the idea that a frame of reference that's in freefall is equivalent to one that in a gravity free region of space (at least that was one of Einstein's Gedankenexperiments that led him to his theory of GR).
Having said that, in reality a sufficiently strong gravitational field will cause a tidal effect, which will crush you along one axis and pull you apart along another.
There was definitely something like that - I am not sure if free-fall and being accelerated in a gravitational field are the same though. It may be that GR is talking about moving along lines in space-time that have the same gravitational potential (orbits), and moving across potential lines counts as an accelerated frame of reference in which you wouldn't observe the same as in a reference frame moving at constant speed.
I was thinking of the Equivalence Principle:
okay, but that would be an accelerated frame of reference, not equivalent to one that is "gravity free"