Can all of the predictions made in Special Relativity (SR) also be made in General Relativity (GR)?
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
4
asked Dec 6, 2012 at 5:06
-
1$\begingroup$ Possible duplicate of Is special relativity a special case of general relativity, qualitatively? $\endgroup$– StayOnTargetAug 27, 2018 at 0:32
-
$\begingroup$ ^ My question was posted (and answered) two years before the duplicate was asked. $\endgroup$– Physics_PlasmaAug 27, 2018 at 14:39
-
$\begingroup$ I was going based on meta.stackexchange.com/a/10844/297415 which says in part "Usually a recent question will be closed as a duplicate of an older question, but this isn't an absolute rule. The general rule is to keep the question with the best collection of answers, and close the other one as a duplicate." Clearly this is subjective though and it seems more important (to me) to identify duplicates at all rather than which one is left open or closed. $\endgroup$– StayOnTargetAug 27, 2018 at 14:48
-
1$\begingroup$ related: physics.stackexchange.com/q/18904/226902 physics.stackexchange.com/q/368655/226902 physics.stackexchange.com/q/555664/226902 $\endgroup$– QuilloSep 14, 2022 at 12:18
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
3
Yes. There is a set of metric tensors that describe flat spacetime--that is, the spacetime of special relativity. General relativity allows us to consider many kinds of metrics, but limiting ourselves only to those that are flat reproduces all the basic predictions of special relativity.
A big thing that separates SR from GR is that GR demands that matter and energy couple to the underlying curvature of spacetime. In the absence of such coupling, spacetime would simply be flat.
-
2$\begingroup$ On the hypothetical level, it might not be flat. In the absence of coupling, geometry won't respond to the behavior or matter, but one could still have a complicated geometry affecting the behavior of matter. Even with restrictive global symmetries analogous to Minkowski spacetime, it might be de Sitter or something (e.g., turning off matter coupling but keeping a cosmological constant). Without any such conditions, it's arbitrary. $\endgroup$ Dec 6, 2012 at 6:56
-
$\begingroup$ As Stan said, your last sentence is not correct. There are non flat solution of GR with no matter at all: black holes for example. $\endgroup$ Dec 6, 2012 at 20:14
-
$\begingroup$ I agree that what form spacetime takes in absence of matter is arbitrary. Perhaps it would be better to say that GR contains all the predictions for flat metrics, as well as for others that have vanishing stress-energy everywhere. $\endgroup$– MuphridDec 6, 2012 at 21:27
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
Yes, but not only general relativity must reduce to special relativity, but any physical law used in general relativity must reduce to the physical law in special relativity. For instance, curved spacetime electrodynamics must reduce to the ordinary Maxwellian electrodynamics when the spacetime is flat.
Precisely Wald emphasizes this fact in his well-known textbook on general relativity (p.68):
The laws of physics in general relativity are governed by two basic principles: (1) the principle of general covariance [...] (2) the requirement that equations must reduce to the equations satisfied in special relativity in the case where $g_{ab}$ is flat.
In the above quote $g_{ab}$ is the spacetime metric.
