Nobel Prize in Physics 2024: John Hopfield, Geoffrey Hinton awarded for work on machine learning

The Nobel Prizes for 2024 in Physics has been awarded to duo for their inventions that helped in machine learning.

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Tuesday (October 8, 2024).

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This year’s two Nobel Laureates in Physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning, the Academy’s media statement said.

John J. Hopfield, Professor at Princeton University, developed a network designed to save and recreate patterns. Called the Hopfield network, his invention leverages the concept of atomic spin from physics – a property that makes each atom behave like a tiny magnet.

“The network as a whole is described in a manner equivalent to the energy in the spin system found in physics, and is trained by finding values for the connections between the nodes so that the saved images have low energy. When the Hopfield network is fed a distorted or incomplete image, it methodically works through the nodes and updates their values so the network’s energy falls,” the Nobel press statement said.

Geoffrey Hinton, Professor at University of Toronto, used the Hopfield network to come up with a new network that uses a different method: the Boltzmann machine. Using tools from statistical physics, Hinton built the new network that can learn to identify key features in specific type of data.

“The laureates’ work has already been of the greatest benefit. In physics we use artificial neural networks in a vast range of areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties,” said Ellen Moons, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics

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Last year, The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electro dynamics in matter.

The Nobel announcement week kicked off on Monday (October 7, 2024) with the Medicine Nobel announcement. The academy awarded Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun the Nobel Prize for Physiology for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.

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The winner for Chemistry will be announced tomorrow (October 9) and the winners of the Literature, Peace and Economic Sciences Prize will be declared on October 10, October 11, and October 14 respectively.

The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be awarded on December 10.

The Nobel Prize was created by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who in his will dictated that his estate should be used to fund “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”.

(With inputs from Agencies)

Published - October 08, 2024 03:20 pm IST