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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]

#751

Post by fat_cantor »

mishaevtikhiev wrote: post #219

My perspective as a PhD in theoretical physics, who's been doing deep learning in the last 4 years: 1. The prize itself makes zero sense as a prize in _physics_. Even the official announcement by the Nobel Prize Committee, taken at a face value, reads as a huge stretch in trying to link neural networks to physics. When one starts asking questions about the real impact on physics and whether the most important works o…

A Hopfield network is a lot more like physics than biology, but agreed that the conformal field theorists should have been recognized before Hopfield and/or Hinton. Jim Simons would have been deserving too, IMHO, far more for his work at RenTec than for Chern-Simons theory

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

#752

Post by esafak »

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.

Bertrand :)

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

#753

Post by dekhn »

steelranger wrote: post #748
dekhn wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal theory is that Demis and John will win the Chemistry prize for AlphaFold this year and that they decided to also award this one to help bolster the idea that ML is making fundamental improvements in academic science. I would prefer if there was an actual Nobel Prize for Mathematics (not sure if the Fields would become that, or a new prize created).

I did have a similar thought, but awarding a prize to AF this year would be a very bold move, given how things went today. Right folks, we've demoralized all the physicists today, tomorrow we can do the same for the chemists!

To be perfectly honest, I'm not really sure the physics community being demoralized by this prize award is a really negative thing. I think many aspects of HEP and other areas have stagnated, requiring exponentially more money for marginal gains (I don't have a problem with LIGO or other large projects, but "we found another high energy particle consistent with the standard models" not so much). Perhaps this prize will give the community a shot in the arm to move away from "safe but boring".

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

#755

Post by mr_toad »

volkadav wrote: post #91
eigenket wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He unironically should

100% agreed as I can't think of any one individual since(1) who has done as much for all of science and engineering as he ultimately did; alas, they are not awarded posthumously. (1) Newton would be a strong contender on a "for all time" basis, but even he would've probably needed to share it with Leibniz, which would have driven him absolutely ~b o n k e r s~, like wet hornet in a hot outhouse mad, LOL.

> probably needed to share it with Leibniz

For Physics?

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

#756

Post by mr_toad »

elashri wrote: post #66

As a physicist, my reaction to this is how bizarre is that. Maybe he deserves a nobel prize but in physics? Also arguing that NN is used in physics so we can argue nobel prize is okay is like asking for Stephan Wolfram to be awarded Nobel prize for Mathematica which is much more used in physics as a tool. And he is a physicist and had contributions to the field of numerical relativity (The reason he created Mathemati…

> The royal science academy fucked up so much with this choice.

Well, you’re talking about it.

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

#757

Post by esafak »

evandrofisico wrote: post #218
drpossum wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of physics is modeling but not all modeling is physics.

Not all modelling is physics, but a rather large part of modeling is. My PhD is in complex systems, and you would be surprised by the range of systems we did study. My work was on a more "traditional" field of high dimension fractal surfaces, but we had a student working on public transit models, another on ecological pattern formation, and so on.

I would argue that that's not physics, but the application of physical techniques to other disciplines.

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

#758

Post by esafak »

varjag wrote: post #200
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama intervened in the Libyan civil war. The outcome was disastrous for Libya (13 years of chaos and counting, the entrance of ISIS into Libya, the re-emergence of slavery in Libya, to name a few consequences). Obama blatantly violated the War Powers Act, which requires the President to seek Congressional approval for any war waged abroad after 60 days. The act was passed on the tail end of the Vietnam War, to preve…

The outcome was positive for Libya, as it experienced only a fraction of human suffering compared to Syria where the United States did not intervene against the regime. Either way Libya operation was spearheaded by France with Obama joining only reluctantly later.

The US did intervene in the Libyan conflict; they trained and armed the FSA, remember?

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

#759

Post by Xcelerate »

ajkjk wrote: post #581
DrillShopper wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, fuck peer review!/s

Everyone's first thought when they read something is whatever the social norms say you're supposed to think (peer review = good, publishing without peer review = not science somehow?), but shouldn't you stop and wonder why the esteemed scientist wrote that line instead of just dismissing it? Otherwise you are only chiming in to enforce a norm that everyone already knows about, which is pointless. One of the really re…

I was reading a recent paper of Levin’s where he used emojis and was cracking jokes. It was refreshing to say the least.

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

#760

Post by xanderlewis »

cubefox wrote: post #728
xanderlewis wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s ‘physicist’ again now.

User "ReyHahn" has changed it back to physicist. Justification: "he defines himself as physicist but he has worked i mnay fields" https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Hopfield&dif...

To use the local lingo…

[citation needed]

I suppose some might argue that being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics is enough to call yourself a physicist.

…it does have the unfortunate implication, however, that nominations need not be restricted to physicists at all since any winner becomes a physicist upon receipt of the prize.

It’s sort of like the No True Scotsman but inverted, and with physicists instead of Scotsmen.

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