Some time ago I was talking to a professor in college about some of the fundamental aspects and origin of General Relativity. I was surprised to learn, in fact, that a pretty good approximation to GR can be achieved simply by using Special Relativity and applying a series of (infinitesimal?) Lorentz boosts to simulate acceleration/a gravitational field. In fact, I believe this is precisely the approach used by GPS system for accurate triangulation/location, as mathematically and computationally it is a somewhat simpler process than applying the Einstein field equations.
So my question is: has anyone else heard of this? An explanation of how exactly this approximation works, and where/why it fails in comparison to true GR (perhaps the strong gravitational field case?) would be much appreciated.
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