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

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

#261
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…

I IS a physics problem. Non physicists tend of think that the only areas being studied are high energy and/or cosmology, but modern physics covers a multitude of areas, including complex systems.

Does that mean that computer scientists who do neural network research should be considered physicists? Do physics journals accept submissions on neural networks research under the same justification?

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

#262
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the development of deep neural networks took direct inspiration biological neuroscience with neurons and synapses. Neural is even in the name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning

It was a source loose of inspiration for sure, but it still have nothing to do with neurosciences. “Neural” network are as close to actual nervous system as the “Democratic” Republic of Korea is to democracy.

Well, come on, not that far apart.

When I see someone trying this hard to be smart I just hear "REEEEEEEEE" or "Well actually......"

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

#263
Congrats to the laureates! Maybe a Computing prize should be created though, like Nobel did not create the "nobel prize of economy".Though you could argue that Computing is Math? What are computer scientists usually awarded with?

edit: s/rewarded/awarded

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

#264

When the most significant advance since electrification needs to hop the fence to be recognized, perhaps it's time to add a new field. It can be done, the Economics prize was added in 1968.

Sincerely, I don't like a shadow cast over the Turing and Gödel prizes. These awards have long honored groundbreaking achievements in computing and logic.

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

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Altough of course you're right, let's play devil's advocate an imagine a world without Nobel prices. Laypeople needs a simple way to know who's who in advanced research fields, without Nobel prices (or any other commitee) we don't get to have that. If people gets to ignore (more) such topics, it's likely politicians, and universities react accordingly, and funnel funds to other enterprises. All these prices (I'd say…

>> Laypeople needs a simple way to know who's who in advanced research fields, without Nobel prices (or any other commitee) we don't get to have that. I think first you're underestimating "laypeople" which seems to include many scientists who are not physicists, and second you are forgetting that many of the scientists the "lay" public knows as the greatest of all times never received a Nobel, or any other famous pri…

Einstein received the Nobel prize in 1921, but your point is still correct.

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

#266

To be fair, Nobel Prize has a history of expanding the traditional bounds of respective fields when awarding the prizes: Bertrand Russel got the Nobel prize in literature Daniel Kahneman got Nobel in economics

Winston Churchill got a Nobel in literature, too.

Yes, but for his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, and more broadly, for his lifetime as an author.

(Admittedly, even more broadly, the prize was the Nobel Committee wanting to acknowledge his leadership in WW2, but still.)

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

#267
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.

What if the next breakthrough is complex and not directly accessible from our current state of math/physics thought?

I see no reasons to expect steady progress. Nobody knows how long it would take to prove Riemann hypothesis, for example.

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

#268

Well, the easiest way to enter the ML field is to pivot from theoretical physics.

Geoffrey Hinton wins the Nobel prize in physics for giving physics postdocs more reasonable job market options

Lol I almost choked laughing at this lmaoo

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three off the top of my head: The measurement of the Hubble constant using delay times between multiple images of lensed supernovae. The first transit spectrum of an exoplanet atmosphere. The first directly imaged exoplanet. (They could hand out Nobel Prizes in the field of exoplanets like candy.)

Exoplanet science is not physics, it's chemistry or planetary science. By your logic prizes to teams who send probes to the outer solar system planets could also be given prizes.

Ok, so under what logic does ML become physics?
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