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What is the meaning of "transformed away" in the following sentence?

The strong equivalence principle states that motion due to gravitation is equivalent to acceleration in a “free fall” in a curved space time. An observer inside a box e.g. in a spaceship, will feel no gravity. So gravity is transformed away by acceleration. Inside the box the laws of physics will be the same as in a Galileo inertial frame.

( Source: General Relativity and Cosmology by Ole Witt-Hansen )

Does "gravity is transformed away by acceleration" mean "gravity is transformed by acceleration and gravity is away by acceleration" ?

that is, does "gravity is transformed away by acceleration" mean "gravity is transformed to acceleration and gravity is away to zero(no gravity)" ?

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    transformed means "to be changed into something else" and away means "from where something or someone is to a different place" and by extension, "gone". So we try to make sense of "being changed into something else from where it is to a different place" or "being changed into something else so it is gone". What is meant is not perfectly clear, but we can make an educated guess. Perhaps it is like "swept away" we ask ourselves, or perhaps "eaten away"?
    – TimR on some device
    Sep 29 at 12:40
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    This is technical English of physics, not plain English. "gravity is transformed away by acceleration" here means "when we transform the system by accelerating it, gravity disappears". (That is, when you drop a box and let it accelerate towards the earth, in a vacuum, a person inside the box will experience weightlessness. It is as though the force of gravity is gone.) This is technical stuff, and ELL may not be the right place for it -- physics.stackexchange might be better, if you have more such questions.
    – Glenn Willen
    Sep 30 at 1:14

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This is not a common combination of words. It would appear that was formed by analogy with "taken away" or "fade away", in which the word "away" means "be gone, disappear".

So by doing a coordinate transformation, gravity disappears.

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  • If so, does "gravity is transformed away by acceleration" mean " gravity is transformed by acceleration, as a result of that, gravity disappears and becomes zero? If so, does "transformed away" mean "transformed, as a resulted of that, away" ? If so, does "taken away" mean "taken, as a resulted of that, away" ? If so, does "fade away" mean "fade, as a resulted of that, away" ?
    – user175012
    Sep 29 at 1:31
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    As I understand the science, the coordinates of the frame of reference are transformed, And as a result gravity disappears
    – James K
    Sep 29 at 1:36
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    I agree with @JamesK, this relates to specialist physics terminology not to mundane English.
    – Mark Morgan Lloyd
    Sep 29 at 10:46
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    Yes, this refers to a transformation of coordinates in the mathematical/physical sense. The meaning is that when you switch to a certain accelerating reference frame, you will not observe gravity. Mathematically, the term corresponding to gravity disappears from your equations when you make that coordinate transformation.
    – Dronir
    Sep 29 at 11:31
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    Further to James and Mark, I suggest that looking around General Relativity and Cosmology by Ole Witt-Hansen shows it to be fairly poorly translated into English. Presumably that's because either author or translator had quite enough work handling the physics in (presumably, Danish)
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Sep 29 at 22:18
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It refers to the idea that the effects of gravity are removed or eliminated.

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