Consider a single source of gravity with large mass (say a heavy star). I am looking for an intuitive explanation of why there is radial length contraction, and how to arrive at this using the principle of equivalence. Clocks slowing down near a gravitational field are easily explained, and there are lots of articles explaining this in books as well as on the net. However (as far as I know) there is not a single article/ note that explains radial length contractions WITHOUT USING THE FIELD EQUATIONS IN VACUUM SOLUTION.
Suppose for sake of discussion, there is no radial length contraction, only clocks slowing down near the source of gravity. Then under this assumption, is there a thought experiment that people have devised that will violate some result of result of special relativity when we apply principle of equivalence?
