>Be me, writing a science fiction story
>Know that 4th dimensional faster than light is too much for mass market
>Story skims over the explanation to give the functional details
>ie this thing is approaching us, help will arrive in 4 weeks
>Go over my story with my father
>He gets annoyed that the FTL explanation is unclear
>I explain to him verbally how FTL works, because I do actually have a fleshed out explanation
>He gets annoyed that he can't understand it (it's a hair's breadth different from basic wormholes)
>I do the pencil-through-paper wormhole explanation
>He still doesn't get it, also doesn't undrstand relativistic mechanics
>He now can't enjoy the book because he doesn't understand a few technical details
>mfw the perspective character never even uses FTL, they just hang around the one star fighting

Am I wrong to think the average sci-fi reader knows what a wormhole is? I thought the average person, let alone the average person with a college degree, had at some point been told what a wormhole was.

An Alcubierre drive is one thing to not understand, and I'm sure there are even more esoteric ideas on how to circumvent the speed limit.