Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton

John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton have been awarded theNobel Prize in Physics 2024 for their work on foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm declared the duo as the winner on Tuesday (Oct 8), a day after the Nobel Prize in Medicine was announced.

“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.

Who are Hopfield and Hinton?

John Hopfield, born in Chicago in 1933, is a professor at Princeton University, New Jersey. He got his PhD fromCornell University, Ithaca in 1958.

Hopfield invented anetwork that uses a method for saving and recreating patterns. The Hopfield networkutilises physics that describes a material’s characteristics due to its atomic spin – a property that makes each atom a tiny magnet.

Meanwhile,Geoffrey Hinton was born in London in 1947 and is currently a professor at the University of Toronto, Canada, having earned his PhD from the University of Edinburg in 1978.

Hinton used theHopfield network as the foundation for a new network that uses a different method: the Boltzmann machine.

Hinton used tools from statistical physics, the science of systems built from many similar components. The machine is trained by feeding it examples that are very likely to arise when the machine is run.

Nobel Prizes

The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy 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".

Nobel died in 1895, but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will before the first prizes were awarded.

Nobel named the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to award the prizes for chemistry and physics, the Swedish Academy for Literature, Sweden's Karolinska Institute Medical University for Physiology or Medicine, and the Norwegian Parliament for Peace.

(With inputs from agencies)