Conversation:

The other, lesser known side to the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle is the minimum error in time and energy. This is what allows neuclear decay to take place (as well as the weak force) - over a very short period of time, an alpha particle can 'borrow' enough energy to break through the potential barrier that its on one side of - it just has to be quick.

(well, thats what I took my lecturer to mean...)

This "borrowed" energy is how virtual particles are created, ie gravitons carrying the gravitational force, gluons carrying the strong force etc. They take the energy while the universe is not looking.....which gives rise to these ghost particles. These create a wave of probability and conversely a wave of improbability. Of course anything which is virtually impossible must logically be a finite improbability. Hence the creation of an improbability drive

It is theoretically possible for a improbability drive ship to appear out of nothing, as long as an anti-improbability drive ship appears at the other end, very close to a black hole, so the antiship gets sucked in, but the ship doesn't.

Of course, the odds of this are likely to be 1/(2^304500)^887401
(ie: small)

But according to the laws of General Narrative Fiction, which are roughly twice as powerful as any mere "Laws of Thermodynamics", that just makes the Improbability drive all the more probable.

Only twice?