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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]

#691

Post by quaxi »

aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #464
muratgozel wrote: post #375

Just watched the nobel prize live stream, surprised by the topic, looks very engineering to me rather than physics, do algorithms make physics subsidiary?

The physics prize has historically taken the role of both "innovation/engineering" topics and "mathematics". It's more broad than simply physics. The most important factor tends to be the positive impact on society, as that's one of the price's core tenets.

In the original will, invention is given the same weight as discovery.

One could also argue that in 1895, applied computer science and information theory would be considered physics.

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

#692

Post by KoolKat23 »

Onavo wrote: post #656
hxnamer wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a widely accepted version of neural network history? I recognize Rosenblatt, Perceptron, etc., but I have never heard that Hopfield nets or Bolzmann machines were given any major weight in the history. The descriptions I have read were all mathematical, focusing on the computational graph with the magical backpropagation (which frankly is just memoizing intermediate computations). The descriptions also went o…

The deep learning variety of neural networks are heavily simplified, mostly linear versions of biological neurons. They don't resemble anything between your ears. Real life neurons are generally modeled by differential equations (in layman terms, have many levels of feedback loops tied to time), not the simplified ones used in dense layer activation functions. Here are some examples https://snntorch.readthedocs.io/en…

Would that be equivalent to Weight matrice parameters?

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

#693

Post by adw »

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…

> Hopfield networks and Boltzmann machines

Think of this as a Nobel prize for systems physics – essentially "creative application of statistical mechanics" – and it makes a lot more sense why you'd pick these two.

(I am a mineral physicist who now works in machine learning, and I absolutely think of the entire field as applied statistical mechanics; is that correct? Yes and no: it's a valid metaphor.)

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

#694

Post by etiam »

NlightNFotis wrote: post #293
pantalaimon wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I see this written a lot, and I don’t get it. What matters for an award is that people recognise it as a prestigious accolade. The economics prize, while not “official”, is still recognised by everyone in economics as the highest honour in the field. Who cares if it’s “official” or not? Awards and prizes derive their value from their social recognition, which it has a solid amount of, at the very least.

Apologies to NlightNFotis for implicitly accusing you of being the griefer. I replied quickly between other tasks and evidently didn't pay due attention to the username. No misplaced offense intended.

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

#697

Post by spullara »

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…

I've never heard that it had to be tied to experimental discoveries. For example, Feynman got the prize for Feynman diagrams, path integrals and QED calculations. None of that directly tied to experimental work.

It has definitely been awarded for both theoretical and experimental contributions throughout its history. Many theoretical physicists have received the prize for their conceptual breakthroughs, even without direct experimental verification at the time.

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

#698

Post by xanderlewis »

cubefox wrote: post #153
amelius wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels a bit like the field of physics claiming the invention of AI, where we all know that mathematics and/or CS deserve the honor.

Someone changed the Wikipedia article today to call Hopfield a "physicist". Previously the article called him simply a scientist, because his main work wasn't limited to physics. I changed it back now, let's see if it holds up.

It’s ‘physicist’ again now.

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

#699

Post by dotnet00 »

T-A wrote: post #604
dotnet00 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think saying they're not looking good might be a bit of an exaggeration. Technological developments in both high energy physics and astrophysics stuff are in-between generations of technology right now, which is why things are a bit slower than usual. With astrophysics, we're probably going to need the more sensitive gravitational wave detectors that are in development to become operational for new big breakthrough…

> With high energy physics, many particle colliders and synchrotron light sources seem to be undergoing major upgrades these days. AFAIK synchrotron light sources are tools for materials science and other applied fields, not high energy physics. Did I miss something? I am also puzzled by the "many particle colliders". There is currently only one capable of operating at the high energy frontier. It's getting a luminos…

>AFAIK synchrotron light sources are tools for materials science and other applied fields, not high energy physics. Did I miss something?

When you put it like that, yeah, I was kinda being stupid. During my stint doing research at a synchrotron light source I was constantly told to focus on thinking like a physicist (rather than as a computer engineer) and most of the work of everyone who wasn't a beamline scientist was primarily physics focused, which is what led me to think that way. But you're right in that it might not make much sense for me to say that makes them high energy physics research tools first.

>I am also puzzled by the "many particle colliders". There is currently only one capable of operating at the high energy frontier. It's getting a luminosity upgrade [1] which will increase the number of events, but those will still be the 14 TeV proton-proton collisions it's been producing for years. There is some hope that collecting more statistics will reveal something currently hidden in the background noise, but I wouldn't bet on it.

The RHIC is also in the process of being upgraded to the EIC. But overall, yes, that's why I said they were in a 'weird' spot. I too am not convinced that the upgrades will offer Nobel-tier breakthroughs.

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

#700

Post by Waterluvian »

spullara wrote: post #697
whatshisface wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've never heard that it had to be tied to experimental discoveries. For example, Feynman got the prize for Feynman diagrams, path integrals and QED calculations. None of that directly tied to experimental work. It has definitely been awarded for both theoretical and experimental contributions throughout its history. Many theoretical physicists have received the prize for their conceptual breakthroughs, even without…

Interesting. Those are essentially inventions, not discoveries?
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