OT: Handwavium-low methods of FTL travel?

[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.