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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]

#531

Post by datavirtue »

underlines wrote: post #352
Kon-Peki wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a slap in the face to the physics community The physics community could use a few more slaps in the face, according to many physicists.

Here's a resounding 'slap' delivered by one physicist to his peers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBIvSGLkwJY

This is like that sidebar you have with someone after you have joined a series of meetings and listened intently and have all these nagging suspicions and you are in denial about people who you think could not possibly be talking this much nonsense because they clearly should know more than you. A few seconds into the sidebar the person tells you that everyone is full of shit, and you find relief in that you were actually understanding everything you were hearing and yes, you were drawing the right conclusions.

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

#532

Post by pfortuny »

whatshisface wrote: post #512
nextos wrote: post #501

I find the prize a bit odd this time since it focused on Hopfield networks and Boltzmann machines. Picking those two architectures in particular seems a bit arbitrary. Besides, Parisi got the prize last year (edit: actually 2021, time flies) for spin glasses. Hopfield networks are quite related. They could have included Hopfield & Hinton too, and it would have looked more coherent. It is also concerning that lately t…

The Nobel in Physics only goes with experimental discoveries, Peter Higgs didn't get his (deserved since the 70s) until the LHC directly observed the particle. I agree that Hopfield networks and Boltzmann machines are a surprisingly arbitrary choices. It is like they wanted to give a prize to someone for neural networks, but had to pick people from inside their own field to represent the development, which limited th…

Mmmmhhhhh… What about Penrose? Honest question.

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

#533

Post by nickpeterson »

ilya_m wrote: post #507
seanhunter wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would add to this list Bernard Russel who won the Nobel in literature for being a public intellectual.

I should take up being a public intellectual, instead of a public nuisance.

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

#534

Post by canjobear »

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.

I understand the frustration, but a lot of Geoff Hinton's foundational work was based on physics principles. For example https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/1993/file/9e3cfc48eccf8...

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

#535

Post by GaggiX »

nilkn wrote: post #515

This must be frustrating to see for all the actual physicists out there. What work in physics got ignored so that a prize for AI could be shoehorned in? I do think work on neural networks does rise to the level of a Nobel Prize. So I don't have any problem with this work getting such high-level recognition. But I really struggle with the physics classification and the side effect of omitting an award to physicists th…

Many of the actual physicists out there are ML researchers.

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

#536

Post by DrillShopper »

an_cap wrote: post #452

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)."

Yeah, fuck peer review!/s

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

#537

Post by whatshisface »

xvedejas wrote: post #528
siva7 wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, was there anything in physics more important than AI? No? See...

It just makes one wonder, what is the point of categories of Nobel prizes? Should they instead hand out half a dozen or so prizes each year for whatever is most important to them?

The categories correspond to who's filling out the nomination paperwork, and voting. You might think of it as a "Nobel from physics," which only usually is a Nobel in physics.

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

#538

Post by pknomad »

xvedejas wrote: post #528
siva7 wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, was there anything in physics more important than AI? No? See...

It just makes one wonder, what is the point of categories of Nobel prizes? Should they instead hand out half a dozen or so prizes each year for whatever is most important to them?

No deeper point other than the person who funded it thought these fields should be awarded and encouraged (econ is the exception).
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