What we need is a large crate, say about four feet on a side. I'm not sure where we'll put it in our offices, but where else can we file all the mail that I'm expecting in response to the article "Negative Energy, Wormholes and Warp Drive"?

Faster-than-light starships, time travel and weird quirks of physics clearly touch a nerve in many of our readers. I'll put this diplomatically: Scientific American already gets a certain number of letters every month from people who maintain that they have devised workable plans for interstellar spaceships. (We're not special in this regard; every science magazine does.) These correspondents generously include the blueprints, which are lovingly detailed except around the drive systems. There the plans get sketchy, with remarks about brackets for supermagnets or black holes in bell jars or other exotic components. The most straightforward ones just present a blank box labeled "Warp Drive Goes Here."

   
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