Physics tools to develop methods that form basis of machine learning; John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton win Nobel

STOCKHOLM: This year's Nobel Prize in Physics has been announced. US researcher John J. Hopefield and Canadian researcher Geoffrey E Hinton have been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics. The Nobel Academy said 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. John Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data. Geoffrey Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and so perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.

BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2024 #NobelPrize in Physics to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.” pic.twitter.com/94LT8opG79

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 8, 2024

“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,” says Ellen Moons, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

Hopfield is a scientist at Princeton University in the US. Hinton is a researcher at the University of Toronto in Canada.