Well maybe in time ML will help break through the high energy physics roadblocks.
ML absolutely has helped astrophysics in sorting the massive amount of observation data to make new discovery.
Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
381–390 of 876 posts
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#382Earlier 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 What need of a layperson does knowing "who's who" in advanced research fields fill? Here's another good question related to that: Who is qualified to simplify that so that the need is filled?
They need to know, to sate the egos of physicists.
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#383Congrats 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
>What are computer scientists usually rewarded with? The Turing Award is considered by most to be the highest award in computer science.
Oh yeah! I forgot about this one! Extremely prestigious in CS but less known by the public unfortunately.
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
it already had, bottom-quark tagging has improved O(10)x in efficiency in the last decade without any new "physics" understanding, just from training with more low-level data and better ML arch (now using Transformers) but we haven't found new physics with or without ML, making this prize a little weird.
I sort of agree in principle but in practise they've always taken a broad view. Kissinger was one of the most prominent disrupters of world peace in the postwar era but that didn't stop him winning the peace prize. Churchill won the literature prize for defeating Hitler. The blue led guys a few years back didn't do much except make a thing that would go on every single consumer gadget and disrupt my sleep but they wo…
Einstein’s work on the photoelectric effect was incredibly important, and incredibly influential on other research at the time. He proposed that light was quantised - essentially the foundation of quantum mechanics.
It’s no exaggeration that Einstein’s work on the photoelectric effect was as important as special or general relativity, and it had the advantage of strong experimental verification by 1921.
The main reason that prize is remarkable is that Einstein himself hated quantum mechanics - but that doesn’t dispute the work’s importance.
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also Barack Obama. It's hard to be POTUS without commiting war crimes.
Do be fair to the Nobel committee, he commit his purported "war crimes" after getting the prize.
He also got it for being half black since by the cutoff date he'd been president for all of 11 days. Had they waited a year they would have had the pleasure of finding out he ordered 50% more drone strikes than Bush did.
Content of his character indeed.
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#386Here is the reasoning: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2024/09/advanced-physicsp...
I'm surprised Terry Sejnowski isn't included, considering it seems to be for Hopfield Nets and Boltzmann machines, where Terry played a large role in the latter.
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
The methods may be inspired by physics, but they have made no contribution to understanding physical laws or phenomena. It's mathematical/CS work. The connection to actual physical laws or phenomena is even more tenuous than the prize for exoplanets a few years ago. The Nobel prize physics committee has made itself a joke, and probably destroyed the credibility of the prize.
> but they have made no contribution to understanding physical laws or phenomena. Neural networks are used in tons of data pipelines for physics experiments, most notably with particle accelerators. The Nobel Prize is also occasionally awarded to engineers who develop tools that are important parts of experiments. 2018 for example was awarded for chirped pulse amplification, which is probably best known for being use…
> Neural networks are used in tons of data pipelines for physics experiments
With this argument you could even say Bill Gates should get an award for inventing Windows and popularized the desktop computer... Or at least Linus Torvalds since those pipelines are probably running Linux...
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#388This is just weird. Can the Nobel prize committee not find physics it wants to celebrate?
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
it already had, bottom-quark tagging has improved O(10)x in efficiency in the last decade without any new "physics" understanding, just from training with more low-level data and better ML arch (now using Transformers) but we haven't found new physics with or without ML, making this prize a little weird.
I sort of agree in principle but in practise they've always taken a broad view. Kissinger was one of the most prominent disrupters of world peace in the postwar era but that didn't stop him winning the peace prize. Churchill won the literature prize for defeating Hitler. The blue led guys a few years back didn't do much except make a thing that would go on every single consumer gadget and disrupt my sleep but they wo…
Oh come on, blue LEDs were a feat of physics and chemistry mastery.
Re: Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton [pdf]
#390What a bunch of BS, yet another field trying to steal the thunder of CS. How often have I had to listen to physicists sneer at CS as not a proper science!
thanks the feeling is mutual since comp scientists sneer at physicists too, just for other reasons
Really? Why would comp scientists sneer at physicists?