John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton have been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics "for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks."

The Nobel Laureates are recognized for their pioneering work in developing methods that have become the backbone of modern machine learning. Hopfield's associative memory network and Hinton's advances with the Boltzmann machine laid the groundwork for artificial neural networks, now widely used in various applications, from image recognition to new material discovery.

The Nobel Prize is worth 11 million Swedish kronor, to be shared equally between the laureates.

• John J. Hopfield, born 1933 in Chicago, USA. PhD in 1958 from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. Professor at Princeton University, NJ, USA.
• Geoffrey E. Hinton, born 1947 in London, UK. PhD in 1978 from The University of Edinburgh, UK. Professor at the University of Toronto, Canada.

For more information, please visit:

• Press release
• Popular science background: They used physics to find patterns in information
• Scientific background: "For foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks"

Source: www.nobelprize.org

Illustration: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 ©Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences