Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

nobelprize.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 876 posts

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#91

Post by volkadav »

eigenket wrote: post #50
drpossum wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it should be awarded for the result. Given the line of reasoning this has now opened up Alan Turing should be awarded one posthumously in every field.

He unironically should

100% agreed as I can't think of any one individual since(1) who has done as much for all of science and engineering as he ultimately did; alas, they are not awarded posthumously.

(1) Newton would be a strong contender on a "for all time" basis, but even he would've probably needed to share it with Leibniz, which would have driven him absolutely ~b o n k e r s~, like wet hornet in a hot outhouse mad, LOL.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#92

Post by drpossum »

jampekka wrote: post #38
jgrahamc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked document connects their work to physics as follows: "The Hopfeld network utilises physics that describes a material’s characteristics due to its atomic spin – a property that makes each atom a tiny magnet. The network as a whole is described in a manner equivalent to the energy in the spin system found in physics, and is trained by fnding values for the connections between the nodes so that the saved image…

Neither of these models were never really influential though beyond some theoretical niches.

Yup. This prize is indistinguishable from "we saw AI in all the headlines, let's see what's the most plausible reasons we could hand it out for that"

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#93

Post by 620gelato »

eigenket wrote: post #40
Ma8ee wrote: post #15

I think this is the Royal Academy of Sciences way to admit that Physics as a research subject has ground to a halt. String theory suffocated theoretical high energy physics for nearly half a century with nothing to show for it, and a lot of other areas of fundamental physics are kind of done.

I think this is (very) inaccurate. It feels more like them trying to jump on a "hot topic" bandwagon (machine learning/AI hype is huge). Physics as a discipline hasn't really stalled at all. Fundamental physics arguably has, because no one really has any idea how to get close to making experimental tests that would distinguish the competing ideas. But even in fundamental physics there are cool developments like the s…

> trying to jump on a "hot topic" bandwagon

I don't know exactly what they hope to gain by jumping on that bandwagon though; neither the physicists nor the computer scientists are going to value this at all. And dare I say, the general populace associated with the two fields isn't going to either - case in point, this hn post.

If there weren't any noble-worthy nominations for physics, maybe skip it? (Although that hasn't happened since 1972 across any field)

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#95

Post by matsemann »

alwinaugustin wrote: post #74

It’s time to consider adding computer science as a category for the Nobel Prize. They have already been awarded prizes for economic sciences and peace, so why not computer science? It's not the same as physics, and its impact on modern life is undeniable

Is that even "possible"? As in, they have to follow the rules of the organization, which have some criteria laid out. Not sure who could stop them from changing, though. Like, I think the original intent was to have done the most the preceding year, but now it's more of a lifetime award. So perhaps they can change or add different categories if wanted.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#96

Post by simiones »

vichle wrote: post #44
Urahandystar wrote: post #25

[flagged]

Could you elaborate, which wars did he start? (honest question)

In addition to the other replies, he is the only US president in modern history to explicitly authorize the assassination of a US citizen without a trial, and create a legal doctrine allowing future presidents to do so; and he was the major escalator of the use of drone strikes in war (the practice started with Bush, but it expanded many fold under Obama).

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#97

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #57
vichle wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate, which wars did he start? (honest question)

Tangential to your question but not the premise of this subthread/post - he became president in Feb 2009 and got the award in October. I don't think he started any new wars, but he inherited some and continued. Anyway, the point here should be the absurdity of a lot of Nobel awards and that stands - especially in his case. I mean Trump was nominated for the award for fuck's sake! More than 2 or 3 times iirc. So anywa…

Obama intervened in the Libyan civil war. The outcome was disastrous for Libya (13 years of chaos and counting, the entrance of ISIS into Libya, the re-emergence of slavery in Libya, to name a few consequences). Obama blatantly violated the War Powers Act, which requires the President to seek Congressional approval for any war waged abroad after 60 days. The act was passed on the tail end of the Vietnam War, to prevent a repeat of things like Nixon invading Cambodia in secret. The US Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, but that power is absolutely meaningless if the President can just wage war wherever he chooses without a declaration.

Obama specifically won the Nobel Peace Prize for talking about his "vision of a world free from nuclear weapons" as a candidate. As President, he initiated a massive program to upgrade the US' nuclear arsenal. It made a complete mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize, though Kissinger also won the Nobel Peace Prize, so it's not as if the prize has any credibility anyways.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#98

Post by nabla9 »

aquafox wrote: post #6

"This year’s laureates used tools from physics to construct methods that helped lay the foundation for today’s powerful machine learning." Does this mean if I'd use a deep understanding of birds to design way more aerodynamic airplanes, I could get the Nobel prize in physiology/medicine? Don't get me wrong, their work is probably prize worthy, but shouldn't the Nobel prize in physics be awarded for discoveries in the…

Boltzmann machines and associative memories originate in physics.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]

#100

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

There's a long backlog of major achievements in physics that haven't gotten a Nobel Prize in Physics.

Giving the prize to something that has essentially nothing to do with physics is just a slap in the face to the physics community.

Post reply on HN