OT: Handwavium-low methods of FTL travel?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

So I'm puttering around, coming up with low-tech space stuff for no particular reason, when I started thinking about FTL travel. Well, naturally, the ones I could think of (Warp space, wormholes, making the speed of light higher, newtonian space, hyperspace) are all 'handwavium-heavy'.

What I'm wondering is are there any that are 'handwavium-light'?

[Ed Kolis]

If even wormholes are "handwavium-heavy" I don't know what you'd consider acceptable...

[Jack Simth]

Well, according to physicists, last I checked, if you had enough recources to throw at the project, and some way to make and store negative energy, you could make a wormhole from one point to another. It's just insane.

You need:
Two rings the size of Pluto's orbit (must be made of very tough stuff).
Negative energy roughly equivalent to twice the mass of jupiter.
Some way to spin those rings up to nearly the speed of light.
A way to get one of the rings to your destination.

Proceedure:
Charge each ring with negative energy roughly equivalent to the mass of jupiter.
Spin each ring up to nearly the speed of light (this is where the tuff stuff comes in handy).
Synchronize them - exactly - same shape, same size, same amount of negative energy, same spin, et cetera.

What you get, is a wormhole, approximately one meter in diameter, going from the center of one ring to the center of the other.

Yeah, um... I don't think I'll see that in my lifetime....

[Puke]

this might be more helpful towards the original question, though:

most sci-fi FTL travel relies on somehow bending / folding space. this happens in one of a few ways:

a wormhole, or warp-point, or whatever: is a stationary point in space, existing by whacky natural phenominon or created artificially or held in place by some device. it bends space between its self, and its destination point.

a jump drive (may be other names) is a portable, non-sustained version of this. its is carried on a ship and bends space from the ships location to the ships destination. it usually takes a great deal of energy, and either the range or number of uses is limited before refueling / recharging.

a warp drive (again, more names exist), is a portable constant effect space-bending device. it either lets the ship travel a short distance instantly and then repeats, or it lets the ship cross space much much faster than normal. it doesnt bend space for instant travel between very distant points, but it bends local space for quick movement, and keeps doing it constantly.

There are other methods of FTL travel that involve riding gravity waves or other whackyness, but they seem to hold even less credability than those I just described. But the VAST majority of all sci-fi FTL travel are variants of the three ideas above.

[Baron Munchausen]

Ed Kolis said:
If even wormholes are "handwavium-heavy" I don't know what you'd consider acceptable...

Since 'the speed of light' is a fundamental constant, and limitation, of the universe it does make one wonder just what he wants. How and why would you even expect an 'easy' way to evade or exceed the basic laws of the universe?

[Phoenix-D]

Baron Munchausen said:
Since 'the speed of light' is a fundamental constant, and limitation, of the universe it does make one wonder just what he wants. How and why would you even expect an 'easy' way to evade or exceed the basic laws of the universe?

Some ways of evading the laws of the universe are easier than others. That and the "laws" are our best approximations of reality.

But any form of FTL is going to be handwavium high. Best to figure out what you're using, its limitations, and the implications thereof.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Ok, then, handwavium-lower.

Picky, picky.

[Glyn]

Narf, what you need is some cheesy science!

Like the Cheese Engine it runs on cheese. It instantly displaces the ship further along it vector of travel based on the amount of cheese infused into its core. A rat�s next of complex components. It was invented by pinky the brain.

[Puke]

Baron Munchausen said:
Since 'the speed of light' is a fundamental constant, and limitation, of the universe it does make one wonder just what he wants. How and why would you even expect an 'easy' way to evade or exceed the basic laws of the universe?

the speed of light in vaccuum - when not acted on by external forces - is thought to be constant, in so far as we have the ability to measure.

we can accelerate light or decelerate it by passing it through other mediums. and every few years, vaccuum turns out to be less empty than we thought it was.

as in "oh, quantum particles seem to spontaniously generate out of nothingness" or as in "odd, there seems to be energy where there is no mass"

the easy (and rather possible with modern science) trick to FTL travel, is to slow light down to a crawl and then just go faster than it.

[Renegade 13]

Though I heartily wish there was a theoretically practical form of FTL travel, I can't think of any off-hand.

But remember, humanity's knowledge of physics has grown tremendously in the past century...who knows what advances and new ideas will come in the future. Perhaps physicists will uncover a method of feasible FTL travel; it's entirely possible.