CERN Interview: A matter of great import!
by Joel
Trinity School has produced some famous alumni across numerous fields, from music to sport and art to science. Joel, a scientifically minded second year, tracked down Trinity old boy Dr Graham Stutter, whose career has taken him to the very top of his field – physics. Dr Stutter joined Trinity in the 1990s and is now working at CERN – the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Switzerland. Joel quizzed him on life at Trinity and how his career has gone into orbit.
Joel: Hello Dr Stutter, it's a pleasure to be talking to you. It seems right to let’s begin with the beginning of the story. When did you study at Trinity and how productive were you at school?
Dr Stutter: I checked the list of teachers and I believe Mr Tucker is still there, so that’s perhaps a question for Mr Tucker! I don’t think I was probably his favourite student... I was at Trinity from 1995 to 2002 – something along those lines. I started in the Junior Form and went right through to Upper Sixth. After that I went to the University of Manchester, and did my undergraduate in physics, and from there I went to Imperial College to do my PhD. I've also worked for Aarhus University in Denmark but I’ve never been there, with all my time spent in CERN!
Joel: What were your experiences of physics like at Trinity and was it clear that this was going to be your path forward?
Dr Stutter: Not at all. When I went to university I was intending to study chemical engineering, but it turned out that it was very…boring! So I decided to do physics instead. I think one of my earliest experiences of physics that was particularly cool was actually at school, there was a teacher called Mr Glemper, and he gave himself an electric shock on the head with a Van der Graaf Generator, which impressed us all – I remember that quite vividly!
Dr Stutter: I checked the list of teachers and I believe Mr Tucker is still there, so that’s perhaps a question for Mr Tucker! I don’t think I was probably his favourite student... I was at Trinity from 1995 to 2002 – something along those lines. I started in the Junior Form and went right through to Upper Sixth. After that I went to the University of Manchester, and did my undergraduate in physics, and from there I went to Imperial College to do my PhD. I've also worked for Aarhus University in Denmark but I’ve never been there, with all my time spent in CERN!
Joel: What were your experiences of physics like at Trinity and was it clear that this was going to be your path forward?
Dr Stutter: Not at all. When I went to university I was intending to study chemical engineering, but it turned out that it was very…boring! So I decided to do physics instead. I think one of my earliest experiences of physics that was particularly cool was actually at school, there was a teacher called Mr Glemper, and he gave himself an electric shock on the head with a Van der Graaf Generator, which impressed us all – I remember that quite vividly!
Joel: Wow! That is interesting. So what drew you to particle physics, and CERN? The Large Hadron Collider was not finished then, and so I doubt that its reputation was as high as it is now?
Dr Stutter: My background is from – rather than particle physics – more of an atomic physics background, that’s my experience. So when I did my PhD it was on quantum physics and was about small numbers of atoms in a trap. We don’t actually deal much with the particle physics – a lot of what happens at CERN is very high-energy physics, hitting them with a lot of energy, and seeing what comes off. We’re at the other end, we take the things that come off, and trap them – slowing them down, so we’re low-energy physics, in a way.
Joel: That’s interesting. I know CERN has multiple experiments like the Super Proton Syncotron? I heard that the SPS is quite large? About seven kilometres in circumference?
Dr Stutter: To be honest, I’m not even sure how big it is, but I deal a lot with the Proton Syncotron, not the SPS, but I can see you’re very on form!
Joel: So, did you go straight into university after your school days?
Dr Stutter: No, I took a gap year before studying chemical engineering. I did other interesting jobs such as being a postman and I even worked in a factory packaging boxes!
Joel: So, quite a far cry from the Proton Syncotron and CERN!
Dr Stutter: Exactly!
Dr Stutter: My background is from – rather than particle physics – more of an atomic physics background, that’s my experience. So when I did my PhD it was on quantum physics and was about small numbers of atoms in a trap. We don’t actually deal much with the particle physics – a lot of what happens at CERN is very high-energy physics, hitting them with a lot of energy, and seeing what comes off. We’re at the other end, we take the things that come off, and trap them – slowing them down, so we’re low-energy physics, in a way.
Joel: That’s interesting. I know CERN has multiple experiments like the Super Proton Syncotron? I heard that the SPS is quite large? About seven kilometres in circumference?
Dr Stutter: To be honest, I’m not even sure how big it is, but I deal a lot with the Proton Syncotron, not the SPS, but I can see you’re very on form!
Joel: So, did you go straight into university after your school days?
Dr Stutter: No, I took a gap year before studying chemical engineering. I did other interesting jobs such as being a postman and I even worked in a factory packaging boxes!
Joel: So, quite a far cry from the Proton Syncotron and CERN!
Dr Stutter: Exactly!
Why in our universe do we have this asymmetry between matter and antimatter?
Joel: What was it that led you to CERN in particular, over everything else?
Dr Stutter: So, I’d always had an interest in the kind of things that were going on at what we call the AD, or the Antiproton Decelerator, because it’s closer to the kind of things I was doing in my PhD. That was mostly atomic physics, trying to take atomic physics methods and meshing them with these kind-of particle physics accelerators is an interesting thing, I think. But the event that led me to CERN came at the end of my PhD. When you write your thesis you then have a defence where you get questioned by two academics, and one of the academics is now one of my bosses here...
Joel: So I understand you work as part of the ALPHA project at CERN. So what are ALPHA’s current goals, in particular?
Dr Stutter: Most of the experiments are trying to test basic symmetries of nature. The idea is that we know that this antimatter exists and we’re able to trap it - the laws of physics tell us that things should be the same about antimatter, that it should be an exact mirror image. Basically, we have the opposite charge but the same mass, and they both interact with the four fundamental forces in the same way. So what we want to do is to trap this antimatter, and perform tests on it. In our case, we are comparing antihydrogen with hydrogen. Hydrogen is very well known, we have had plenty of access to it for many years and its properties are reasonably well understood. However, antimatter, we don’t get much of a chance to play with. But, we can trap a few antimatter atoms at a time, and then interact with them, and see what happens.
Joel: And so, the ‘arena’ of atomic physics and quantum physics, how has it changed as time has passed? I'm hoping to become a particle physicist and work at CERN but what I have grown up with is, I imagine, very different to what you experienced?
Dr Stutter: I’m not so old! I started my PhD in 2010 and things have changed in this area of experimentation, such as the amount of antihydrogen atoms that we can trap per experiment, which has gone up. So, when, in 2010-2012, we could maybe get one antihydrogen atom in an experimental cycle, which is around 15 minutes, now we can get tens!
Dr Stutter: So, I’d always had an interest in the kind of things that were going on at what we call the AD, or the Antiproton Decelerator, because it’s closer to the kind of things I was doing in my PhD. That was mostly atomic physics, trying to take atomic physics methods and meshing them with these kind-of particle physics accelerators is an interesting thing, I think. But the event that led me to CERN came at the end of my PhD. When you write your thesis you then have a defence where you get questioned by two academics, and one of the academics is now one of my bosses here...
Joel: So I understand you work as part of the ALPHA project at CERN. So what are ALPHA’s current goals, in particular?
Dr Stutter: Most of the experiments are trying to test basic symmetries of nature. The idea is that we know that this antimatter exists and we’re able to trap it - the laws of physics tell us that things should be the same about antimatter, that it should be an exact mirror image. Basically, we have the opposite charge but the same mass, and they both interact with the four fundamental forces in the same way. So what we want to do is to trap this antimatter, and perform tests on it. In our case, we are comparing antihydrogen with hydrogen. Hydrogen is very well known, we have had plenty of access to it for many years and its properties are reasonably well understood. However, antimatter, we don’t get much of a chance to play with. But, we can trap a few antimatter atoms at a time, and then interact with them, and see what happens.
Joel: And so, the ‘arena’ of atomic physics and quantum physics, how has it changed as time has passed? I'm hoping to become a particle physicist and work at CERN but what I have grown up with is, I imagine, very different to what you experienced?
Dr Stutter: I’m not so old! I started my PhD in 2010 and things have changed in this area of experimentation, such as the amount of antihydrogen atoms that we can trap per experiment, which has gone up. So, when, in 2010-2012, we could maybe get one antihydrogen atom in an experimental cycle, which is around 15 minutes, now we can get tens!
There’s a new experiment to measure the gravitational force on the antihydrogen, which has never been done before.
Joel: It's interesting that the field is expanding so quickly that it’s only seven years since that was happening. Does that make you excited for the future?
Dr Stutter: Yes, definitely, and inside the experimental area where I work, there is a new experiment starting all the time. There’s a new experiment to measure the gravitational force on the antihydrogen, which has never been done before. We’re not even sure at this point whether antihydrogen falls up, and if it has antigravity – that’s something that we need to measure.
Joel: The gravitons might affect that – whether gravitons do exist?
Dr Stutter: Yes, whether they interact in the same way with antimatter or the opposite way, it is probably one or the other. You would think that the size of the force would be the same but it might be in a different direction – but this is all a thing you have to measure, you can’t make any assumptions.
Joel: No, though that’s quite impressive! Ok, so what great questions in the 'arena of physics' do you hope to see answered – say, in the next decade, or so?
Dr Stutter: So, I’m not sure if it’s realistic for the next decade or not, but I think one of the biggest questions is – why in our universe do we have this asymmetry between matter and antimatter? We have only matter in our universe, and why is that the case? It’s proposed that, during the Big Bang, equal amounts of each had been produced, and, if it’s true that all of the laws of nature are symmetrical, where did all the antimatter go? That’s a big question that’s still to be answered.
Joel: It sounds fascinating. So, how would you encourage a student at Trinity like myself to pursue particle physics – or CERN in particular – and what do you think would encourage more people to get into it?
Dr Stutter: I think the reason that I like doing this job is that every day is something different, and there are lots of different things that you get to do. On one particular day I might be playing – well, not playing – I should probably say ‘working’, with cryogens, so – liquid helium, liquid nitrogen, putting together vacuum equipments, and my main speciality is working with lasers. That’s where much of my experience has been, working with lasers. So, this is a very big experiment, and everyone needs to do a little bit of everything, which I really enjoy – you never stop learning, and I really like that!
Joel: I think that is one of the main attractions to particle physics, maybe, at least for me. One final question, possibly a more light-hearted one! Were you an A-grade physics student at Trinity, or was it a climb up to ‘greatness’?
Dr Stutter: So, I think I was an A4 type-student. I would just basically get As for attainment but 4s for effort! I have kept some of my reports, and they make some funny reading – reports about sleeping in class, things like that…
Joel: It’s been brilliant, fascinating and quite hilarious! It has been a pleasure interviewing you Dr Stutter, and on behalf of Trinity, I wish you and ALPHA good luck.
Dr Stutter: Thanks very much!
Joel: Thank you!
Dr Stutter: Yes, definitely, and inside the experimental area where I work, there is a new experiment starting all the time. There’s a new experiment to measure the gravitational force on the antihydrogen, which has never been done before. We’re not even sure at this point whether antihydrogen falls up, and if it has antigravity – that’s something that we need to measure.
Joel: The gravitons might affect that – whether gravitons do exist?
Dr Stutter: Yes, whether they interact in the same way with antimatter or the opposite way, it is probably one or the other. You would think that the size of the force would be the same but it might be in a different direction – but this is all a thing you have to measure, you can’t make any assumptions.
Joel: No, though that’s quite impressive! Ok, so what great questions in the 'arena of physics' do you hope to see answered – say, in the next decade, or so?
Dr Stutter: So, I’m not sure if it’s realistic for the next decade or not, but I think one of the biggest questions is – why in our universe do we have this asymmetry between matter and antimatter? We have only matter in our universe, and why is that the case? It’s proposed that, during the Big Bang, equal amounts of each had been produced, and, if it’s true that all of the laws of nature are symmetrical, where did all the antimatter go? That’s a big question that’s still to be answered.
Joel: It sounds fascinating. So, how would you encourage a student at Trinity like myself to pursue particle physics – or CERN in particular – and what do you think would encourage more people to get into it?
Dr Stutter: I think the reason that I like doing this job is that every day is something different, and there are lots of different things that you get to do. On one particular day I might be playing – well, not playing – I should probably say ‘working’, with cryogens, so – liquid helium, liquid nitrogen, putting together vacuum equipments, and my main speciality is working with lasers. That’s where much of my experience has been, working with lasers. So, this is a very big experiment, and everyone needs to do a little bit of everything, which I really enjoy – you never stop learning, and I really like that!
Joel: I think that is one of the main attractions to particle physics, maybe, at least for me. One final question, possibly a more light-hearted one! Were you an A-grade physics student at Trinity, or was it a climb up to ‘greatness’?
Dr Stutter: So, I think I was an A4 type-student. I would just basically get As for attainment but 4s for effort! I have kept some of my reports, and they make some funny reading – reports about sleeping in class, things like that…
Joel: It’s been brilliant, fascinating and quite hilarious! It has been a pleasure interviewing you Dr Stutter, and on behalf of Trinity, I wish you and ALPHA good luck.
Dr Stutter: Thanks very much!
Joel: Thank you!