First course in GR (Schutz) - notes

For example, a timelike interval between two events is the time elapsed on a
clock which passes through the two events; a spacelike interval is the length of a
rod that joins two events in a frame in which they are simultaneous. The
mathematical function that calculates the interval is the metric, and so the metric
of SR is defined physically by lengths of rods and readings of clocks.

In particular, is it possible to construct a frame in which the clocks all run at the
same rate? This is a crucial question, and we shall show that in a nonuniform
gravitational field the answer, experimentally, is no.

In this sense, gravitational fields are incompatible with global SR: the ability to
construct a global inertial frame. We shall see that in small regions of spacetime –
regions small enough that nonuniformities of the gravitational forces are too
small to measure – we can always construct a ‘local’ SR frame. In this sense, we
shall have to build local SR into a more general theory.