How are they pretty much the same thing? Displacement is one element of a vector. Taken alone it is a scalar quantity. It just says how much, but not what direction. Distortion of space can be expressed as a vector field but it doesn't "go" anywhere.
We know that he didn't understand the physics that he was expressing. No one would because it was pseudo-science based on reading a few websites on the subject. We've already had an actual physicist or two weigh in on that portion of the Titor Saga. Dr. Robert Brown, once he recovered from hysterical laughter, posted his comments here. (Actually, I posted the email that he wrote to me, with his permission.) Dr. Brown is a professor of physics at Duke University.
Where does it defy special relativity? Actually, where does special relativity come into play with his gadget? By his own description is involves gravitational distortion of space-time. Gravity is absent from special relativity, which explains why it is called "special" relativity. SR is a limiting case where gravity is absent, or in the weak field limit, ignored.[/quote
You know i overlooked this comment about gravity and his unit so sorry im getting back to you late. How it relates, hmmm ill try to explain without giving it away. I toss an apple up into the air, the apple doesn't stay up in the air, it comes back down. Why? Its gravity! His unit used a dampening field of sorts to keep the black hole down closer to the ground so he didn't end up flying off into open space or arrive into a mountain somewhere. Id call it controlled gravitational dampening but to do that it must manipulate what we understand to be the norm on gravity. To do that we must understand how black holes work and the laws surrounding special relativity for his device distorts space and opens a gateway to a parallel dimension the theory given in special relativity and as how we all know it doesn't apply exactly to the norm with this device in operation but it doesn't defy the law as outlined by Einstein . This doesn't really explain much to you Darby but perhaps if you read a little on what Einstein had to say about the mechanics of special relativity and what i am saying this unit to be you might catch the reality of what this device is all about!
As long as one was convinced that all natural phenomena were capable of representation with the help of classical mechanics, there was no need to doubt the validity of this principle of relativity. But in view of the more recent development of electrodynamics and optics it became more and more evident that classical mechanics affords an insufficient foundation for the physical description of all natural phenomena. At this juncture the question of the validity of the principle of relativity became ripe for discussion, and it did not appear impossible that the answer to this question might be in the negative.
Nevertheless, there are two general facts which at the outset speak very much in favour of the validity of the principle of relativity. Even though classical mechanics does not supply us with a sufficiently broad basis for the theoretical presentation of all physical phenomena, still we must grant it a considerable measure of “truth,” since it supplies us with the actual motions of the heavenly bodies with a delicacy of detail little short of wonderful. The principle of relativity must therefore apply with great accuracy in the domain of mechanics. But that a principle of such broad generality should hold with such exactness in one domain of phenomena, and yet should be invalid for another, is a priori not very probable.
Note<<<<<<<< It is in fact probable to a point, technology, math, science behind it was not available at this time to make understandable to Einstein the adverse difference in dark matter, yet it really doesn't impact the theory of special relativity sense its just an adverse effect, an echo of an alternate domain within the phenomena and the ripples of space divergence in the 4th dimension.
ALL OF THE LAWS OF PHYSICS are the same for every inertial observer.
By observing the outcome of any experiment (mechanical, electromagnetic, optical---or any physical law whatsoever), one cannot distinguish a state of rest from a state of constant velocity.