Alain Haché

Who is Alain Haché?

Alain Haché is an experimental physicist, a professor at the University of Moncton, Canada. Since 2003 he holds the Canada Research Chair in Photonics. He is also the author of The Physics of Hockey, a popular science book on ice hockey.

In 2002, he and undergraduate student Louis Poirier transmitted faster-than-light electrical pulses through a 120-metre long "photonic crystal" made of coaxial cables of alternating characteristic impedance. The experiment showed that the pulse envelope was recreated at the end of the cables at a speed of >3 c. Since this speed represents the group velocity but not the signal velocity, no energy or information was actually traveling faster than light.