Profile
Sameed Muhammed
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About Me:
I work at CERN, the European Center for Particle Physics and I currently live in Geneva, Switzerland. Outside of work, my favorite activities are hiking, skiing, table tennis, and Ultimate Frisbee. My favorite drink is hot chocolate.
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I work at CERN, the European Center for Particle Physics, home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) where the famous God Particle (Higgs Boson) was discovered. Did you know that CERN is also the place where the World Wide Web was born 30 years ago? This year I personally met the founder of the World Wide Web, Tim-Berners Lee. He is a super cool and super nice guy!
I currently live in Geneva, Switzerland. I am originally from Islamabad, Pakistan, but I have lived and studied in many countries: France, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. Outside of work, my favorite activities are hiking, skiing, table tennis, and Ultimate Frisbee. I am also a certified CERN guide…so if you ever come to Geneva, I can show you around the lab for free 🙂
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As a research scientist, I study matter and antimatter – when matter and antimatter come together, they completely annihilate each other and produce pure energy! If you had 1 gram of antimatter, you could generate enough energy to power a spaceship to the moon and back!
But it is very hard to trap and control antimatter. In the lab, I shoot lasers and microwaves at particles of matter and antimatter and record how they interact with each other. This helps us understand why our universe has so much matter but so little antimatter. We have started using antimatter in medical applications and are looking for new ideas on how to use antimatter to benefit the world. Do you have any ideas?
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My Typical Day:
On a typical day, I go to my lab around 9AM and the first thing I do is check whether all the systems that produce and trap antimatter are working normally. Then I do my experiments which involve lasers and microwaves are are super fun to do. At the end of the day, I play table tennis or frisbee before going home.
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On a typical day, I go to my lab around 9AM and the first thing I do is check whether all the systems that produce and trap antimatter are working normally. Next, I make a list of tasks for the data. For example, today’s list:
– Turn on the anti-electron system and trap 2 million anti-electrons
– Observe how long the anti-electrons live in the trap
– Make a batch of 1 million anti-electrons and put them in Trap 1
– Make a batch of 1 million electrons and put them Trap 2
– Mix anti-electrons in Trap 1 with electrons in Trap 2 in Trap 3, the Mixing Trap.
– Repeat the process with lasers in the Mixing Trap
– Repeat the process with microwaves in the Mixing TrapYou can see that it is a very busy day…so I make sure I get a cup of coffee every 3-4 hours. Also, I play table tennis or ultimate frisbee at the end of the day to unwind and prepare for the next day.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I want to create a software that would allow students and teachers to engage with scientists directly on social media and messaging apps and actually get answers to their questions and concerns. Currently, very few celebrity scientists (like Brian Cox and Bill Nye) actually answer questions because it takes a lot of time and resources. With my software, scientist would be able to have engaging conversations with hundreds of students and teachers everyday but only spend 15 minutes per day, which is not that much to ask 🙂