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Comment by aquafox | Hacker News Reader

"This year’s laureates used tools from physics to construct methods that helped lay the foundation for today’s powerful machine learning."

Does this mean if I'd use a deep understanding of birds to design way more aerodynamic airplanes, I could get the Nobel prize in physiology/medicine? Don't get me wrong, their work is probably prize worthy, but shouldn't the Nobel prize in physics be awarded for discoveries in the _physical world_?

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I studied physics in the 90s and we had an NNs course, where most of the models were inspired by physics (MLPs was just one). NNs have been used since decades for identifying e.g. the trajectories of particles at CERN. I remember Hinton's work with Sejnowski (who probably should also be awarded). I was actually surprised to find out that Hinton was not a physicist by training

Obviously physicists take great interest in models of the brain or models of intelligence. All of physics is modeling , after all

All of physics is modeling but not all modeling is physics.

Not all modelling is physics, but a rather large part of modeling is. My PhD is in complex systems, and you would be surprised by the range of systems we did study. My work was on a more "traditional" field of high dimension fractal surfaces, but we had a student working on public transit models, another on ecological pattern formation, and so on.

I would argue that that's not physics, but the application of physical techniques to other disciplines.

At least the somewhat free interpretation of field boundaries is nothing new. The physicist Rutherford ("All science is either Physics or stamp collecting")[1] won the Chemistry Nobel Prize.

Influence and consideration of the Zeitgeist is also nothing new. Einstein got his prize for the discovery of the Photoelectric Effect and not Relativity.

[1] I know that some people have interpreted this quote in favor of the other sciences but I think that is far fetched.

Kahneman was awarded Nobel prize in economic sciences even though his work was, in fact, all about psychology.

Note that: There are no economic science Nobel prize.

Only one similar named price in the name and memory of Alfred Nobel, which some how, is allowed to be part of the Nobel prize celebration.

I guess my opinion is in minority, but i don't like that another prize hijacks the Nobel prize.

Everything in the universe is a tool from physics - taps head smugly.

Everything is either mathemetics or stamp-collecting (ie social sciences).

Physics and chemistry are just applications of mathematics.

Boltzmann machines and associative memories originate in physics.

But, the starting point of Neural Networks in the ML/AI sense, is cybernetics + Rosenblatt's perceptron, research done mathematicians (who became early computer scientists)

This is price in physics. Not price in Neural Networks. Starting point of Hopfield's and Hintons work in recurrent networks was physics analogy.

Neural networks and physical systems with emergent collective computational abilities https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC346238/

Their work does not advance the field of physics in any way, unless you insist to extend physics to each and every discipline out there.

That's why I wrote that it was unexpected.I'm not taking position of if this was deserved or undeserved, but this was clearly in the realm of physics and inspired by it.

Accepting wrong arguments in support of positions you have is not good way to live your life. It leads to constipation.

Plato: man is a featherless biped

The Society for Birdology now has the pleasure of jointly awarding posthumously Plato and Diogenes with the Distinguished Birdologist Award. Their findings on human anatomy used insights from birdology at critical points. Well done, lads!

> Does this mean if I'd use a deep understanding of birds to design way more aerodynamic airplanes, I could get the Nobel prize in physiology/medicine?

Yes I think it does. But those planes would have to create one hell of a buzz!

Hm, they have to fit them into Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, or Peace. I guess physics is the closest they can get without a gross missplacement? (Although you might be able to absue literature for LLMs?)

They dont have to give them a nobel prize. They have not advanced any of those areas.

I think that you can grow mathematics through applied mathematics. It's something that grows the domain where Mathematics is useful, even though the maths themselves where known and somewhat well understood in a more abstract way.

Considering this, it feels odd not to allow a similar thing to happen on physics.

It's definitely not how "they" work. It's not like a committee choosing an achievement across all the fields and then trying to put it into one of the 5 buckets.

We have Turning Award, Fields Award and the other thousands of awards for achievements that can't be categorized as Physics/Biology/Economics/Chemistry.

The Turing Prize is for contribution in computing ... History would show this is not a good choice or taste of the Nobel Physics Committee ...

It highlights the evolving nature of scientific boundaries

I IS a physics problem. Non physicists tend of think that the only areas being studied are high energy and/or cosmology, but modern physics covers a multitude of areas, including complex systems.

Complex non-physics systems?

Does that mean that computer scientists who do neural network research should be considered physicists? Do physics journals accept submissions on neural networks research under the same justification?

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