FTL

From Turtledove

FTL, an abbreviation for "Faster Than Light," refers to travel at speeds greater than the speed of light. Albert Einstein concluded from theoretical analysis that travel at such velocities is physically impossible.

[edit] FTL in Worldwar

Though both "Tosevite" and Lizard physicists had once believed that faster-than-light travel was impossible (see Theory of Relativity), in 2031, physicists from the United States designed a starship, the Commodore Perry, which could fly faster than light. The technology appears to have involved manipulating superstrings so that points that were ordinarily separated by a great deal of distance in the space-time continuum would temporarily be in immediate contact with one another.

On its inaugural journey, the Commodore Perry traveled the eleven light-years from Earth to Home in five weeks. The Race found this extremely alarming, and doubted it could match the feat in less than seventy-five years, even moving at a pace which it would previously have considered reckless.

The US built more Commodore Perry class starships. The second of the class was the Thomas Edison.