Princeton Professor Emeritus John Hopfield was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks,” Tuesday morning. Hopfield was jointly awarded the prize with Geoffrey Hinton on Tuesday, Oct. 8. Hinton is a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of Toronto.
Hopfield is the 23rd member of Princeton faculty and alumni to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, joining the likes of Syukuro Manabe, James Peebles GS ’62, and Richard Feynman, GS ’42, who received the Physics Nobels in 2021, 2019, and 1965 respectively. He is the Howard A. Prior Professor in the Life Sciences Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Molecular Biology. He also holds associated faculty status in Physics and Neuroscience.
Widely regarded as the “godfather of AI,” his co-recipient, Hinton, has recently garnered significant media attention for his warnings about the potential risks associated with revolutionary advancements in artificial intelligence.
Congratulations to #PrincetonU professor emeritus John Hopfield, awarded the 2024 @NobelPrize in Physics alongside @UofT's Geoffrey Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.” https://t.co/g65tiOECBz 👏 pic.twitter.com/BmNm5I3LH5
— Princeton University (@Princeton) October 8, 2024
The University held a press conference in the Edward C. Taylor Auditorium in Frick Chemistry Laboratory on Tuesday, hosted by University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, to celebrate Hopfield’s achievement. Hopfield joined the conference over Zoom from his home in rural England. Director of the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI) Mala Murthy, Vice President for Communications and Government Affairs Gadi Dechter, and Chair of the Department of Physics James Olsen also joined. The auditorium was filled with students, faculty, and members of the press, with some sitting on the stairs and a large crowd standing in the back of the room.
“Here at Princeton University, we have a tradition of celebrating these [Nobel] prizes the way that some universities celebrate national athletic championships,” Eisgruber said. “John, I very much hope that Congress is listening as you speak. The fundamental science that gets done today is essential to the applications of tomorrow.”
“As a member of the department, John was a passionate teacher and mentor to generations of undergraduate and graduate students inspired by his brilliance and unique approach to studying nature,” Olsen said. He noted that Hopfield taught, and was the course director for, PHY 103 and PHY 104 in the 1967–68 academic year.
“My colleagues are thrilled for John and this deserving acknowledgment of his transformative contributions to fundamental science and its practical applications,” Olsen added.
Hopfield discussed the importance of interdisciplinary work across science, highlighting the links between physics, neuroscience, and computer science.
“When I first worked in the areas for which I had been given undue honor, there were disciplines, and you didn’t cross discipline boundaries,” Hopfield said during the press conference. “In the long run, new fields of science grow up at the intersection of big chunks of science.”
Hopfield’s remarks were met with enthusiastic applause from the campus audience. Responding to a question about how his work on neural networks intersected with the field of physics — addressing a controversy over the win in the field — Hopfield posed a question in response.
“Let me first ask, what defines the field of physics?” Hopfield said. “In my view, physics is trying to understand how systems work.”
He continued to explain that, “when you get systems that are rich enough in complexity and in size … you have to say that system contains some new physics. And in trying to understand the brain, there are so many questions that you can’t even make any plausible suggestions for how they work. There’s going to be new physics found in understanding how the brain operates.”
His response was met with huge applause from the audience.
Machine learning is a field of artificial intelligence that empowers computers to learn from data and improve their performance on a specific task without being explicitly programmed. The research “used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning,” according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Hopfield and Hinton’s discoveries, inspired by the human brain’s ability to process information, have revolutionized fields ranging from astrophysics to environmental studies.
In an email to The Daily Princetonian, Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology Bonnie Bassler wrote how “[Hopfield]’s discoveries show how research at the interface of disciplinary boundaries can transform our understanding of nature and deliver practical applications that benefit society.”
In 1982, Hopfield developed what is known as the Hopfield network, a type of artificial neural network which helps to recognize patterns in thoughts. These networks can store patterns and recall them even when presented with incomplete or distorted information.
Hopfield addressed concerns in the usage of unregulated artificial intelligence (AI), emphasizing that “the worry [he has] is not AI directly, but AI combined with information flow around the globe … I think the autonomy of individual units, call them people, comes into collision with everything known by something or other.”
Professor in Neuroscience Sebastian Seung, whose office is located just two doors away from Hopfield’s, recently shared a post on X highlighting Hopfield’s pioneering contributions to the field and his influence on generations of scientists.
“John Hopfield’s seminal papers on neural nets inspired thousands of physicists, including me, to have the courage to venture off the beaten path into AI and neuroscience,” Seung wrote in an email to the ‘Prince.’
Hopfield joined Princeton’s faculty as a professor of physics in 1964, after receiving his Ph.D. from Cornell University, joining the theory group at Bell Laboratories, and working at UC Berkeley from 1961 until 1964.
“One of the reasons I came to Princeton originally from Berkeley is that the faculty was actually interested in teaching,” Hopfield said.
In 1980, Hopfield moved to the California Institute of Technology, where he served as Professor of Chemistry and Biology until 1997. In 1997, he returned to Princeton, where he spent the rest of his career as Professor of Molecular Biology until 2008, when he transitioned to emeritus status. He was instrumental in the creation of the PNI in 2004.
Hopfield is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Society. His other honors include the Albert Einstein World Award of Science in 2005 and the Boltzmann Medal in 2022. He served as the president of the American Physical Society in 2006.
At the end of the press conference, a reception was held in Hopfield’s honor. Several of Hopfield’s colleagues gave remarks, each referring to Hopfield as an inspiration and mentor.
“John was an inspiration for almost a small generation of us back then, and he’s been an inspiration for generation after generation,” Professor of Physics William Bialek said. “He’s an incredibly warm and supportive human being. It is a pleasure not only to celebrate the recognition of work, the recognition really of a whole field that changes the boundaries of the world of physics, but it’s also wonderful to have the pleasure of recognizing a great friend.”
Eisgruber proposed a toast to conclude the event.
“We’re grateful not only to have John Hopfield at Princeton to benefit from his scholarship, but his first generation and second generation and third generation of students and mentees throughout this room. So, one last time to all of you, to neuroscience and biophysics at Princeton, and to John Hopfield.”
Mahya Fazel-Zarandi is a senior News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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