Local tidal acceleration scaling ($a_{\mathrm{tidal}}=O(\mathcal{R}L)$)

The geodesic deviation equation makes the relative gravitational acceleration proportional to the separation $L$ and a typical Riemann curvature tensor component $\mathcal{R}$. Thus tidal acceleration vanishes as $L\to 0$ at fixed bounded curvature. A uniform electric field can give different accelerations $qE/m$ at the same point, independently of separation. Relative tidal changes accumulated over a fixed long time need not vanish as a fraction of the initial separation; a local spacetime experiment must control its duration as well as its spatial size.