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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]

#451

Post by tombert »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #100

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.

It still kind of baffles me that there isn't a Nobel Prize in Mathematics and/or computer science.

The latter makes a bit more sense, computer science wasn't really a thing when Alfred Nobel was around, but mathematics certainly was! It seems like it would be perfectly reasonable to add a category for math, and I think Neural Nets would fit in there considerably better.

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

#452

Post by an_cap »

An excellent career retrospective by John Hopfield - https://pni.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf321/files/docu...

"As an Academy member I could publish such a paper without any review (this is no longer true, a sad commentary on aspects of science publishing and the promotion of originality)."

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

#453

Post by scarmig »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #448

Was just listening to a live radio interview with Hinton finding him in a small hotel room in California somewhere quite flabbergasted at the news. Interviewer all happy for him etc, but when delving more into what it was for he started to go off on AI concerns etc and the interview didn't last much longer. Acceptance speech might be something.

Hoping he speaks a lot of truth to power.

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

#454

Post by mindcrime »

scarmig wrote: post #434
mindcrime wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well to be fair, everything important in AI is based on Jurgen's ideas! J/K'ing. That said, Jurgen has done a lot of important work, and may well be a bit under-appreciated.

He does get a reference in the Nobel announcement, so he can console himself with that at least.

Good point. I suppose if one is going to not win the Nobel Prize, a decent "consolation prize" is at least being referenced in the prize announcement for whoever did win.

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

#455

Post by shombaboor »

tombert wrote: post #451
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #100

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.

It still kind of baffles me that there isn't a Nobel Prize in Mathematics and/or computer science. The latter makes a bit more sense, computer science wasn't really a thing when Alfred Nobel was around, but mathematics certainly was! It seems like it would be perfectly reasonable to add a category for math, and I think Neural Nets would fit in there considerably better.

the fields medal fills that gap

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

#456

Post by antientropic »

pantalaimon wrote: post #277
worstspotgain wrote: post #257

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.

the economics prize is not 'official', it was established by the Swedish National Bank in honor to Alfred Nobel.

The economics prize is listed on nobelprize.org ("the official website of the Nobel Prize") along with the other Nobel prizes, so I don't think you can justify calling it "unofficial".

Perhaps if the ACM renamed the Turing Award to "The Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Computer Science", the Nobel Foundation would let them get away with it.

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

#457

Post by CamperBob2 »

scarmig wrote: post #417
VHRanger wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This prize is more of a settler colonialist land grab by physicists. ML is just a subfield of physics (like every other field), so let's make sure that everyone knows that it's in our domain. Speaking as a onetime physicist now in ML...

Eh, I doubt Hinton would have won if he hadn't turned to alarmism in his dotage. The prizes are as political these days as they are scientific.

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

#460

Post by lukasga »

tombert wrote: post #451
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #100

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.

It still kind of baffles me that there isn't a Nobel Prize in Mathematics and/or computer science. The latter makes a bit more sense, computer science wasn't really a thing when Alfred Nobel was around, but mathematics certainly was! It seems like it would be perfectly reasonable to add a category for math, and I think Neural Nets would fit in there considerably better.

The story is that it is because Alfred Nobel was cheated on by a mathematician (hilarious, but unconfirmed)

http://nobelprizes.com/nobel/why_no_math.html#story

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