The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton for "foundational discoveries and inventions that have enabled machine learning using artificial neural networks."
The two scientists who won the Nobel Prize in Physics this year used the tools of physics to develop methods that form the basis of today's powerful machine learning, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
In it, John Hopfield created an associative memory that could store and reproduce images and other types of patterns in data. For his part, Geoffrey Hinton invented a method that could automatically find features in data and thus perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in images.
"The laureates' work has had the greatest benefit," said Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics. "In physics, we use artificial neural networks in many areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties."
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden at 11:45 a.m. CEST (ie 4:45 p.m. October 8, Hanoi time).
John J. Hopfield was born in 1933 in Chicago, USA. He received his PhD in 1958 from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. He is currently a professor at Princeton University, New Jersey, USA.
Geoffrey E. Hinton was born in 1947 in London, UK. He received his PhD in 1978 from the University of Edinburgh, UK. He is currently a professor at the University of Toronto, Canada.
According to the Nobel Prize website, the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded 117 times to 225 laureates from 1901 to 2023. John Bardeen is the only person to have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice - in 1956 and 1972. This means that by 2023, a total of 224 individuals have received the Nobel Prize in Physics since the award was established.
In 2023, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics to three scientists Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier for experiments that "gave humanity new tools to explore the electronic world inside atoms and molecules".
Scientist Pierre Agostini is a professor at Ohio State University, Columbus, USA. Scientist Ferenc Krausz, born in 1962 in Mor, Hungary, is currently working at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. Scientist Anne L'Huillier, born in 1958 in Paris, France, is currently working at Lund University, Sweden.
In his will, Alfred Nobel specifically designated the organizations responsible for the prizes he wanted to establish: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to select the winners of the Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry, the Karolinska Institute for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and a Committee of five elected by the Norwegian Parliament (Storting) to select the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1968, the Swedish bank Sveriges Riksbank established the Swedish Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was tasked with selecting the laureates in the field of economic sciences starting in 1969.
