The equivalence principle is one of the laws of nature and it is connected with the nature of gravitation. In general relativity theory, the equivalence principle states that a gravitational field is locally equivalent to an accelerated frame. To be precise, it says that a freely falling observer or system will not experience the effects of gravity except through tidal forces or equivalently, the curvature components – this was an observation by Albert Einstein.
The magnitude of the curvature components at the horizon are small and tend to zero as the mass and radius of the black hole increase. The curvature typically satisfies:
Any freely falling system of size much smaller than MG will not be distorted or otherwise disrupted by the presence of the horizon; the equivalence principle requires the horizon of a very large black hole to have the same effects on a freely falling observer as the horizon of Rindler space; namely, no effect at all.
Related: What is a Black Hole?
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