In this engaging video interview, John Hopfield, a renowned physicist, shares his reactions upon being awarded the Nobel Prize. Living in the tranquil town of Selborne, he finds the solitude comforting as he processes the exciting news. Reflecting on the moment he discovered his win, Hopfield expresses his initial disbelief and subsequent realization as he received numerous congratulatory emails.

Hopfield discusses his scientific journey focused on understanding how the mind works through the workings of neural networks. He describes how his curiosity about brain function gradually evolved into exploring artificial intelligence, explaining how ideas from both physics and biology could merge to explain complex phenomena like consciousness. He emphasizes the importance of asking the right questions and forming interdisciplinary communities to solve scientific mysteries.

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. solitude [ˈsɑːlɪtuːd] - (noun) - The state of being alone, often by choice, in a peaceful manner. - Synonyms: (isolation, seclusion, privacy)

It gives you some solitude on such a busy day.

2. astounding [əˈstaʊndɪŋ] - (adjective) - Causing great amazement or wonder. - Synonyms: (astonishing, amazing, remarkable)

It was just astounding.

3. ticklers [ˈtɪklərz] - (noun) - In this context, preliminary messages that hint at forthcoming news. - Synonyms: (teasers, prompts, hints)

...the leading ones on top were just ticklers.

4. neurobiological [nʊəroʊbaɪəˈlɑːdʒɪkəl] - (adjective) - Relating to the biological study of nerve systems. - Synonyms: (neurological, biological, physiological)

...slowly from much more physics oriented to the neurobiological one.

5. collective phenomena [kəˈlɛktɪv fɪˈnɑːmɪnə] - (noun phrase) - Occurrences that appear as group actions or features instead of single entities. - Synonyms: (group dynamics, mass behavior, communal events)

...somehow was related to collective phenomena in networks.

6. catalyzed [ˈkætəˌlaɪzd] - (verb) - Caused or accelerated an interaction or process. - Synonyms: (triggered, initiated, stimulated)

...it catalyzed the community, and the Hopfield network was a huge advance.

7. amplitude [ˈæmplɪˌtuːd] - (noun) - The extent or range of a feature or phenomenon, often in terms of voltage, height, or intensity. - Synonyms: (intensity, magnitude, extent)

...my knowledge and understanding moves slowly from much more physics oriented to the neurobiological one.

8. satisfactory [ˌsætɪsˈfæktəri] - (adjective) - Adequate or suitable in fulfilling a need or requirement. - Synonyms: (acceptable, adequate, sufficient)

That's not a satisfactory answer.

9. dynamics [daɪˈnæmɪks] - (noun) - The forces or properties that stimulate growth, development, or change within a system or process. - Synonyms: (forces, movement, interaction)

...structure, dynamics and properties.

10. interdisciplinary [ˌɪntərˈdɪsəpləˌnɛri] - (adjective) - Involving two or more academic, scientific, or artistic areas of knowledge. - Synonyms: (cross-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary, integrative)

...to form interdisciplinary communities to solve scientific mysteries.

First Reactions - John Hopfield, Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 - Telephone interview

Hello? Oh, hello, is this John Hopfield? This is John Hopfield speaking. Yes. Oh, hello, my name is Adam Smith. I'm calling from the website of the Nobel Prize and Mary very kindly set up this time to talk to you. Is that okay? Yeah, yeah. Are you on speakerphone? How is this at your end? That's absolutely perfect. That's great. Thank you very much indeed. First of all, congratulations on the award of the Nobel Prize. Oh, thank you, thank you. Mary tells me you find yourself in Hampshire today. That's right. It's quite a good place to hear the news of the Nobel Prize because you're slightly hidden. We're off on our own, as it were, in a tiny town of less than a thousand people. It gives you some solitude on such a busy day.

I don't think there's another physicist in the town of Selborne, so that things totally leak out over the news, but there's no marching in the street here. How did you actually learn the news that you'd been awarded the Nobel Prize? I had been out doing things with my wife, blew shot cup of coffee somewhere, came back here and there was this enormous list of emails on my computer, which I did not expect at all. And reading into the first two or three of them, you realized there must be a Nobel prize there. It was just astounding. My first reaction was, they've announced the Nobel Prize because he described it without actually managing to connect me as a Nobel prize in the same sentence. And so I thought it was sort of an email to me about the Nobel Prize to somebody. And it wasn't until I got down to about a third one that I realized, no, it was to me, but the leading ones on top were just ticklers. I didn't sink in until I got down to the fourth email.

I like the idea of those teasers. The prize is given for enabling machine learning and artificial neural networks. But I think I'm right in saying that you didn't embark on this work in order to create the tools, but rather to understand how mind arises from the wiring in the brain. That's right. My motivation was really coming from seeing that something does work, the brain, and understanding more about how the brain works would be necessary to understand thought, consciousness or what have you, and that it somehow was related to collective phenomena in networks. And I slowly wove my way from an interest in how the brain functioned to the question of how could hardware or software or whatever you wanted to call it, wetware, produce such a thing? And the tender gravity of my knowledge and understanding moves slowly from much more physics oriented to the neurobiological one. And somewhere along the line, this connection between AI networks, neural networks and physics developed.

You've looked at a number of different questions in biology over the years using the lens of physics. I wondered, what tempts you, what makes a good problem for you as a physicist? Yeah. In the good physics problem, you have to have a system which is well defined and where you can understand something about how collectively it may work in a way which is more robust in the individual little bits and pieces. You don't leap into a problem. Overall, I want to understand how mine works. You have to build up from the bottom. If you were doing weather, you would say, I want to understand what storms are without going back to interacting air nitrogen molecules. You have to have the right level of question, and it isn't obvious what the level of question should be. You get your hands rather dirty and trying to work on several things which don't pan out.

Yes, I suppose there's a long history of physicists turning their attention to the brain, to consciousness, people like Francis Crick or Don Glaser. And it is all about getting the level of the question right, isn't it? Well, I'd read some of the things that Don Queser wrote, for example, in their imaginative physics. They're not quite such good biology. There is a consensus that you had to be able to reach out from physics and get to some of these things you'd like to, but then you have to know enough about the biology. The whole thing makes sense, and you really have to present things in such a way that a community develops. I didn't realize that at the time, but certainly one of the important things of what I did had to do with enabling people who came from physics or who came from biology become a community, working on not just one little problem at peace, but somehow collectively working together toward trying to get an understanding.

Yes, it catalyzed the community, and the Hopfield network was a huge advance for people that they could latch onto and develop. Let me ask you one other thing that your co laureate, Geoffrey Hinton, is very vocal in speaking about. His fears about machine learning and its potential. Do you share his worries? Yeah, I share his worries. You always worry when things look very, very powerful and you don't understand why they are, which is to say, you don't understand how to control them. Or if control is an issue or what their potential is, you don't really understand and can explain how they work without saying, if you go deeply enough the mathematics, they'll work. That's not a satisfactory answer. I would like to have more understanding of how the microscopic physics gives rise to the interesting properties of the larger system.

Do you hope that this Nobel Prize will send some message? It's the first prize in artificial intelligence, if you like. I think that the prize is recognizing, in part, the fact that understanding the deep problems of things like mind is not going to come forth in some simple way like newtonian physics. It really requires much more understanding of the relationship between structure and properties and structure, dynamics and properties. And that's a mixture of some corners of physics, some corners of chemistry, some corners of biology coming together to understand and create an area of study.

Thank you. Very nicely put. Let me just finish by commenting that I realise you're hearing this news in Selborne, which was the subject of Gilbert White's the natural history of Selborne. Oh, you've discovered Gilbert White. Good for you. But it's nice for Selborne that it gets to have a Nobel Prize announced in its midst, given that it has such a deep, ancient association with natural science. Gilbert Feige, astute Observer. Yes, it's been an enormous pleasure speaking to you. Thank you very, very much. And let me again add our congratulations on today's news. Well, thank you. And I know it's not simple to try to interview me when I'm still somewhat in shock. Very understandable. It's been fascinating and I look forward to a longer conversation when all the dust settles in the future. Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye bye. Bye bye.

Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, Technology, Physics, Leadership, Nobel Prize, Nobel Prize