By Adedapo Adesanya
The 2024 Nobel Prize in the field of physics has been awarded to the duo of John J. Hopfield of Princeton University, NJ, USA and Geoffrey E. Hinton of the University of Toronto, Canada for their respective inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.
The pair were awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Tuesday for training artificial neural networks using physics.
Hopfield invented a network that uses a method for saving and recreating patterns and his co-laureate Hinton used the Hopfield network as the foundation for a new network that uses a different method: the Boltzmann machine which can learn to recognise characteristic elements in a given type of data.
“Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data and Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and so perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures”, a statement said.
The two men will get 11 million Swedish Kronor ($1 million), to be shared equally.
“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 Ms Ellen Moons, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.
The 2023 award went to French-Swedish physicist Anne L’Huillier, French scientist Pierre Agostini and Hungarian-born Ferenc Krausz for their work with the tiny part of each atom that races around the centre and is fundamental to virtually everything: chemistry, physics, our bodies and our gadgets.
The next prize to be awarded will be in chemistry on Wednesday then literature on Thursday after which peace (Friday) and economics (next Monday).