Predictions for Physics Nobel Prize 2024 (and the results)

[pines-demon]

According to this article, physics Nobel laureates are becoming harder to predict. Let's see if it is the case.

I was hoping for any of the quantum information people to get it this year (Zoller, Cirac, Shor, Deutsch, Bennet, Brassard, Ekart, Kitaev) but it might be to early for that. Also I saw that optics physicists like Federico Capasso could be in the run but I do not think optics will get something after last year prize. An interesting option I saw from the Clarivate Citations is Cristoph Gerber for the atomic force microscope.

What are your predictions for the Physics Nobel Prize this year? Please provide some rationale.

 

[sbrothy]

I already mentioned the growing teams back in '23. @berkeman shared some interesting thoughts on the subject which, it appears, isn't new (the subject I mean ).

Here are some suggestions for chemistry, physiology and medicine but it's unfortunately behind a paywall.

 

[pines-demon]

I already mentioned the growing teams back in '23. @berkeman shared some interesting thoughts on the subject which, it appears, isn't new (the subject I mean ).

Here are some suggestions for chemistry, physiology and medicine but it's unfortunately behind a paywall.

Curiously enough, bekerman mentioned Rees opinion, however Rees just won the 2024 Wolf Prize in Physics alone.

 

[pines-demon]

As users here seems to be too shy to give their answers (unless everybody is working with the Nobel Prize Foundation under a vow of secrecy), I will be just adding predictions from elsewhere:

Clarivate Citation laureates physics:

• Peter Shor and David Deutsch for quantum algorithms
• Pablo Jarrillo Herrero, Allan McDonald and Rafi Bistritzer for magic angle in twisted graphene
• Christoph Gerber for atomic force microscope
• Honorably mention in chemistry to Roberto Car and Michelle Parinello for Car–Parinello molecular dynamics

Sabine Hossenfelder:
From https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2024/10/who-will-win-this-years-nobel-prize-in.html

• Peter Shor and David Deutsch for quantum algorithms
• Yakir Aharonov and Michael Berry fo geometrical phases
• Metamaterials (no name mentioned)
• Andrei Linde, Slava Mukhanov (?) and Alan Guth for the cosmic microwave background power spectrum (or cosmic inflation in general)
• Milgrom Moderhai and Stacey McGaugh (from James Webb Telescope) for modified Newtonian dynamics and its predictions

I have strong reservation for the last ones.

Wolf Prize 2024:

• Martin Rees for contributions to astrophysics and cosmology

 

[pines-demon]

Physics World:
from Matin Durrani and Hamish Johnston and who have already predicted some before https://physicsworld.com/a/nobel-predictions-and-humorous-encounters-with-physics-laureates/

• Lene Hau for slow light
• John Pendry and Federico Capasso for metamaterials and nanophotonic devices
• Pablo Jarrillo Herrero for magic angle twisted graphene

 

[sbrothy]

Physics World:
from Matin Durrani and Hamish Johnston and who have already predicted some before https://physicsworld.com/a/nobel-predictions-and-humorous-encounters-with-physics-laureates/

• Lene Hau for slow light
• John Pendry and Federico Capasso for metamaterials and nanophotonic devices
• Pablo Jarrillo Herrero for magic angle twisted graphene

Heh, I was bout to be miffed about this "random" scientist getting credit for stopping and starting light as, I seem to remember a Danish scientist doing something along the very same lines. Needless to say, it turns out to be the same person! Duh!

 

[pines-demon]

Heh, I was bout to be miffed about this "random" scientist getting credit for stopping and starting light as, I seem to remember a Danish scientist doing something along the very same lines. Needless it say, it turns out to be the same person! Duh!

If you are talking about slow light it might be Lene Hau or Stephen E. Harris (not Danish though).

 

[sbrothy]

If you are talking about slow light it might be Lene Hau or Stephen E. Harris.

Well, I meant Lene Hau but, as you might be able to tell from my half-a..ed interference, I really should do more of my homework before getting involved. I even promised the moderators as much. So, sorry for the noise. Just thought it a little funny. Especially in the light of this "historical fact": Did the Danish Scientist H. C. Ørsted really discover and describe basic electromagnetism?.

 

[mattphys]

Thomas Gallagher, Barry Dunning and Joseph Eberly for the theory and observation of the C.P. field enforced Bohr atom: https://scitechdaily.com/rice-physi...quantum-mechanics-and-newtons-laws-of-motion/

 

[pines-demon]

Thomas Gallagher, Barry Dunning and Joseph Eberly for the theory and observation of the C.P. field enforced Bohr atom: https://scitechdaily.com/rice-physi...quantum-mechanics-and-newtons-laws-of-motion/

what is a C.P. field? Anyway I think Rydberg atoms could get a mention but not necessarily this research...

 

[pines-demon]

That reminds me that levitodynamics could also get a prize at some moment...

 

[pines-demon]

I also feel that particle physics is completely ignored in the predictions? Is it the end of particle physics Nobel Prizes?

 

[pines-demon]

Physics World provided a graph [here] to see which fields have been awarded in the last years, somehow they still insist it is going to be optics and condensed matter stuff:

 

[BillTre]

Here is a Nature analysis of previous Nobel winners.
Lots of nice graphics.

 

[pines-demon]

It seems it went to machine learning what a pity...

 

[pines-demon]

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 to

• John J. Hopfield
• Geoffrey E. Hinton

“for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”

 

[phinds]

It seems it went to machine learning what a pity...

Why a pity? Machine learning is likely to have a more direct and beneficial effect on mankind than any other area of science in the next several years. It has its bad side of course, but still ... advances in medicine, materials science, weather prediction, etc etc.

 

[pines-demon]

Why a pity? Machine learning is likely to have a more direct and beneficial effect on mankind than any other area of science in the next several years. It has its bad side of course, but still ... advances in medicine, materials science, weather prediction, etc etc.

As a physics prize it does not fit. If we had a major breakthrough in physics due to that maybe but it seems to be impacting other areas first. Also which field of physics is being considered here?

 

[f95toli]

As a physics prize it does not fit. If we had a major breakthrough in physics due to that maybe but it seems to be impacting other areas first. Also which field of physics is being considered here?

ML is being widely used in physics, not only in the "obvious" ways (data analysis etc) but also as an approach to solving (numerically) problems in quantum physics, materials science, chemistry etc.
Hence, even you ignore wider applications, it is very much an "enabling technology" for many, many areas of physics.

 

[pines-demon]

ML is being widely used in physics, not only in the "obvious" ways (data analysis etc) but also as an approach to solving (numerically) problems in quantum physics, materials science, chemistry etc.
Hence, even you ignore wider applications, it is very much an "enabling technology" for many, many areas of physics.

Again I am not aware of any major breakthrough in physics so far due to machine learning. Secondly what makes this a physics prize? For the same reasons it could have won the chemistry and medicine Nobel prizes.

 

[pines-demon]

Nature title in their article about todays Physics Nobel Prize captures my feeling:

• Physics Nobel scooped by machine-learning pioneers

Edit: My safe predictions for chemistry is AI for proteins.

 

[f95toli]

Secondly what makes this a physics prize? For the same reasons it could have won the chemistry and medicine Nobel prizes.

True. But the same is true of many prizes, e.g. the Nobel prize for the integrated circuit in 2000.

 

[EDMM2]

Again I am not aware of any major breakthrough in physics so far due to machine learning. Secondly what makes this a physics prize? For the same reasons it could have won the chemistry and medicine Nobel prizes.

Maybe not breakthroughs, but almost all astronomy measurements are filtered through layers and layers of machine learning to tell signal from noise.

From the black hole photographs to the dark energy survey, almost none of it would be happening without the application of machine learning and neural networks.

This is to say nothing of the particle and condensed matter physics that do the same.

 

[bob012345]

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 to

• John J. Hopfield
• Geoffrey E. Hinton

“for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”

I’m glad this year the prize went to something useful instead of something so esoteric only a handful of physicists really understand it.

 

[gentzen]

Good choice, but I wonder who nominated them. Maybe some spiritual successors of Asher Peres:

Asher Peres was a master of creating controversy for the sake of making a point. For instance, in 1982 he was asked to make a nomination for the Nobel prize in physics. He nominated Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin! Asher reasoned that Begin’s decision to invade Lebanon proved him as qualified for a Nobel physics prize as he was for his earlier peace prize.

Now some complain that the prize did not go to physicists, but to computer scientists:

I disagree, John Hopfield is a physicist after all, and Geoffrey Hinton used methods from statistical physics. And we already know that it has real world impact, just like x-rays and many other Nobel Prizes in Physics.

 

[Frabjous]

Since LLM’s use neural nets, shouldn’t the blanket ban on them at PF be reconsidered?

 

[StatGuy2000]

Again I am not aware of any major breakthrough in physics so far due to machine learning. Secondly what makes this a physics prize? For the same reasons it could have won the chemistry and medicine Nobel prizes.

It is worth pointing out that much of the theoretical underpinnings of artificial neural networks were based on simplified computational models of biological neural networks called Hopfield networks (after John Hopfield, the co-winner of the Nobel prize), which were itself based on the Ising model (developed in the 1920s as a model for magnetism, and important in statistical mechanics).

So one could claim that much of the work of Hopfield and Hinton expanded on Ising models and more broadly in the areas of statistical physics.

 

[bob012345]

Aren’t we forgetting that AI is going to solve for the Theory of Everything!

 

[collinsmark]

======== Satire =============

This from The Onion (an online, satirical magazine):
https://theonion.com/nobel-prize-in...ien-giving-peace-sign-driving-tie-dye-vw-bug/

Nobel Prize In Physics Awarded To Alien Giving Peace Sign Driving Tie-Dye VW Bug

STOCKHOLM—In a ceremony at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel Committee reportedly awarded their annual prize in physics Tuesday to Zoomer and Zorbit, two aliens commonly seen driving a tie-dye Volkswagen bug while flashing peace signs. “For their profound advancements in astrophysics, we are pleased to honor this pair of smiling, neon green aliens surrounded by flowers and peace signs with the 2024 Nobel Prize,” said the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Foundation, posing next to the recipients as they clutched the prestigious gold medal in their three-fingered hands. “These far-out beings have made tremendous strides in traversing the cosmos in nothing but a souped-up VW Beetle with a novelty license plate spelling out ‘PEACE’—something which no other life form in the galaxy has been able to accomplish. Thanks to their scholarship, we all may soon be able to roll our kaleidoscopic vehicles over the rainbow road straight to the glitter-covered surface of Saturn, and we’ll have these two and their message of radical love to thank when we do.” At press time, Zoomer and Zorbit had dedicated their award to their dear friend and collaborator, a purple leopard-print seal.​

=========== /Satire ===============

 

[mattphys]

what is a C.P. field? Anyway I think Rydberg atoms could get a mention but not necessarily this research...

So I tipped wrong. Physics AI Theory leading to faceswapping and deepfake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake won the Nobel Prize 2024 but I think it is worth it too. Possibility to remake the true movie virtually with someone else perfectly replaced as it was him playing or simply such replacement in the static photo is surely worth the Nobel Prize.

C.P. field is the Circularly Polarized electromagnetic field which in the dipole approximation means that the electric field is simply rotating like inside the charged capacitor which would be put at the rotating platter of the old classic vinyl record player. But I think that the C.P. field dressed true Bohr atom and the Trojan Wave Packets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_wave_packet must win it later too.

 

[ergospherical]

Some interesting context r.e. the Hopfield model for spin glasses:
https://indico.ictp.it/event/a02004/contribution/0/material/0/0.pdf

 

[pines-demon]

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 to

• David Baker

“for computational protein design”

• Demis Hassabis
• John M. Jumper

“for protein structure prediction”

Yes the last two are about the AlphaFold achievements.

 

[pines-demon]

Edit: My safe predictions for chemistry is AI for proteins.

I least I got a prediction right, but it was not very difficult after yesterday's announcement.

 

[EDMM2]

Hinton's press conference interview about the award is pretty downbeat.



Quite a bit of discussion about AI risk and safety.

 

[pines-demon]

Hinton's press conference interview about the award is pretty downbeat.

Here is the equivalent press conference for Hopfield:



He also raises awareness on AI.
Additionally, he tackles the question of where is the physics in artificial networks, I consider that he provides a compelling response.