astronomy

Muhammad Sahimi

Muhammad Sahimi is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Muhammad Sahimi rather than just read about it. In short: Muhammad Sahimi (Persian: محمد سهیمی; born 22 January 1954) is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and holds the NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company) Chair in petroleum engineering at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. He is also active in journalism, frequently writing on Iranian politics.

Key takeaways

Muhammad Sahimi belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Muhammad Sahimi to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Muhammad Sahimi from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Muhammad Sahimi (Persian: محمد سهیمی; born 22 January 1954) is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and holds the NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company) Chair in petroleum engineering at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. He is also active in journalism, frequently writing on Iranian politics.

Career Sahimi received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tehran in 1977. After briefly working for the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), he received a scholarship from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. He traveled to the US in 1978 (where he has since remained), completing his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota in 1984. He then moved to the University of Southern California, becoming Chairman of his department from 1999 to 2005. Since then, he has held the NIOC Chair. He has also been a visiting professor in Australia and a consultant to many industrial corporations. He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2023, "for fundamental contributions to the development of percolation theory and statistical physics, specifically in the characterization of heterogeneous porous materials and media, as well as the study of flow and transport processes occurring therein".

Political views Sahimi writes in broad support of Iranian reformists, one of the two main political camps inside the Islamic Republic regime; the other one is Iranian Conservatives. Since 2003, Sahimi has written many articles on the subject of Iranian politics (particularly the Iranian nuclear programme) for websites such as Payvand, Antiwar.com and the Huffington Post. He has been a regular columnist for Tehran Bureau since 2008, and has written occasional pieces for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal the Harvard International Review and The Progressive. He has, on many occasions, defended Iran's nuclear program as being peaceful, and the actions of Iran as being essentially legal and justifiable (originally in a seven-part series at Payvand entitled Iran's Nuclear Program). In the process, he has frequently leveled criticism against other writers on the subject, accusing Con Coughlin (of the UK Daily Telegraph) of knowingly spreading lies and disinformation, and David Albright of exceptional bias. (Albright responded to the criticism in a program on antiwar.com radio). He has also criticized two former Deputy Directors-General of the IAEA, Olli Heinonen and Pierre Goldschmidt, citing unnamed sources to accuse Heinonen of breaking the IAEA protocols by leaking confidential information (to David Albright) and of spreading unconfirmed claims about the contents of a laptop that was supposedly stolen from Iran and given to Western intelligence agencies, as part of a "crusade against Iran." He also accused Goldschmidt of having a "personal agenda" about Iran's nuclear program, while also disputing his assessment that Iran has violated the NPT. In his writings on Iran's nuclear program, Sahimi has also expressed the view that the United Nation's Security Council sanction resolutions against Iran are illegal. Because of his strong support for the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear program and the similarity of his arguments to those used by the Iranian government in its IAEA submissions, he has been accused of being close to the government in Tehran. Sahimi has denied these accusations but has stated that his articles have been used without his knowledge by members of the Iranian political establishment, including Ayatollah Rafsanjani.

Books Applications of Percolation Theory (1994) Flow and Transport in Porous Media and Fractured Rock (1995); second edition (2011). Heterogeneous Materials I, Linear Transport, and Optical Properties (2003) Heterogeneous Materials II, Nonlinear and Breakdown Properties and Atomistic Modeling (2003)

Notes

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Muhammad Sahimi

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Muhammad Sahimi claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Muhammad Sahimi before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Muhammad Sahimi ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Muhammad Sahimi

In research: Muhammad Sahimi appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Muhammad Sahimi in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Muhammad Sahimi is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1954 births, Fellows of the American Physical Society, Iranian chemical engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Muhammad Sahimi outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Muhammad Sahimi in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Muhammad Sahimi means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Muhammad Sahimi out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Muhammad Sahimi in simple terms?

Why does Muhammad Sahimi matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Muhammad Sahimi?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Muhammad Sahimi.