Reply to comment

Fred has left with a mystifying response. I don't know what he means by a "convergence" which he believes I'm describing that "would not happen."

"From the perspective of someone on the outside, that person is in a gravitational field and is accelerating. From the perspective of the person falling, the local 'g' is 0."

I have no problem with this description, or any description confirmed by observation. The problem is the standard interpretation that confuses gravitational acceleration with inertial acceleration. "The local 'g'" is ALWAYS 0 when gravitation isn't obstructed, because "g" is the measure of inertial resistence to gravitation. Fred seems to think I've been arguing that there is no gravitation if we don't feel it. We NEVER feel gravity itself - gravity is a geometric distortion of spacetime, and a body moving freely in a gravitational field is always moving uniformly from its own frame of reference. The experience of 'g' only occurs when gravitation is resisted. There is no observation, either here or far out in space that conflicts with this distinction, whereas the confusion of obstructed gravitation with the inertial obstruction is a fundamental error that pervades theoretical physics - at least here on earth.

Is the problem a difficulty in understanding the difference between a purely relative gravitational acceleration (where "the local 'g' is 0") and an inertial acceleration (where the local 'g' is proportional to the force involved)? Is the problem just the inertia of an established paradigm? In either case, it's astounding to me that the distinction can't even be heard without imposing one's own implicit association of gravitation and inertia, the very association that's at issue.

The reasoning seems to be "Gravitation and inertial acceleration can't be distinct because gravitation and inertial acceleration are two aspects of the same principle." It's called a tautology. And this is the state of physics today?