Abstract
Einstein's equivalence principle was initially the equivalence of an accelerated frame and uniform gravity. In spite of being often challenged, Einstein insisted on the fundamental importance of his equivalence principle to general relativity. It is shown that existing criticisms, starting from Synge and Fock, are due to misunderstanding and misconceptions in physics, and/or inconsistent considerations. These include the misinterpretations of Pauli, Bergmann, Tolman, Landau & Lift shitz, Zel'dovich & Novikov, Dirac, Wheeler, Thome, Hawking, and others. It has been overlooked that Einstein's equivalence principle implies uniqueness ofthe gauge for given frame ofreference. The recent criticism by Hong has the distinction of starting from his intuitive, though inadequate, observation that a homogeneous field is characterized by the fact that any part of it is representa tive ofthe whole. It is pointed out that his notion of uniform gravity disagrees with experiment on the gravitational redshift. His arguments concerning acceleration also disagree with special relativ ity, while repeating the same mistake of Landau & Lifshitz. Moreover, it is pointed out that the cru cial role of Einstein's equivalence principle in general relativity is firmly established because the Maxwell-Newton Approximation, which is rigorously derived in the theoretical framework of gen eral relativity, is unambiguously supported by experiments. Thus, the Schwarzschild solution is ac tually invalid in physics.
Published Version
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