Computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton and physicist John Hopfield have won a Nobel Prize for their pioneering work on the neural network architecture that underlies machine learning. Specifically, the…
Out of curiosity, are they using any of his underlying ML techniques to analyze imaging/other data collection before using it in actual physics models?
Well, just about every data analysis technique ever invented has been applied in physics somewhere. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on applying a genetic algorithm to electron-atom scattering in particle detectors, a topic which I recall someone had already tried neural networks on.
That’s what I’m wondering. It’s not wild to give him a prize in physics if his techniques led to advancement in physics.
“CS is applied math, not applied physics” like physics isn’t just applied math to model real world data is kind of weird, especially if his particular math actually got used in physics. That’s pretty much what calculus was.
Providing the medium through which, to a rough approximation, all physics is discussed is, proportionally, a vastly greater contribution than any technique that only applies to a fraction of problems.
Out of curiosity, are they using any of his underlying ML techniques to analyze imaging/other data collection before using it in actual physics models?
Well, just about every data analysis technique ever invented has been applied in physics somewhere. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on applying a genetic algorithm to electron-atom scattering in particle detectors, a topic which I recall someone had already tried neural networks on.
That’s what I’m wondering. It’s not wild to give him a prize in physics if his techniques led to advancement in physics.
“CS is applied math, not applied physics” like physics isn’t just applied math to model real world data is kind of weird, especially if his particular math actually got used in physics. That’s pretty much what calculus was.
I don’t think that Donald Knuth deserves a physics prize for inventing TeX, even though TeX was a massive contribution to how we communicate physics.
I’m not sure how that’s the same thing.
Typesetting papers isn’t the same as developing mathematical methods that directly enable new solutions.
Providing the medium through which, to a rough approximation, all physics is discussed is, proportionally, a vastly greater contribution than any technique that only applies to a fraction of problems.
But the more salient point is that the Nobel Prize is an institution that we should, as a culture, care less about. And all the more so now, since they are getting in on the hype about an industry that is fundamentally anti-scientific.