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Comment by cosmic_quanta | Hacker News Reader

I can only think of major achievements in my (narrow) field of study.

What do you think could have reasonably been awarded?

The computation of the cosmic microwave background fluctuations hasn't received a nobel prize yet. It's had a deep impact on how we understand the Universe.

Some people still alive who made important contributions to this are Rees and Sunyaev.

Three off the top of my head:

The measurement of the Hubble constant using delay times between multiple images of lensed supernovae.

The first transit spectrum of an exoplanet atmosphere.

The first directly imaged exoplanet.

(They could hand out Nobel Prizes in the field of exoplanets like candy.)

Exoplanet science is not physics, it's chemistry or planetary science. By your logic prizes to teams who send probes to the outer solar system planets could also be given prizes.

What's "exoplanet science"? The above are applications of knowledge of physics to astrophysics, as far as I understand it. Certainly they sound more relevant to physics than neural networks.

Ok, so under what logic does ML become physics?

I would argue that the first measurements of exoplanets' existence is definitely physics. This was a leap in our understanding of the makeup of the universe.

Alfred Nobel's stated standard for a prize is:

"conferred the greatest benefit to humankind"

So while those things are cool and groundbreaking, I'd say they have yet to cross the threshold into "greatest benefit to humankind"

If you define "benefit to humankind" narrowly, and don't view gaining pure knowledge about the workings of the universe as beneficial to humanity, then most physics Nobel Prizes over the last few decades fail the test.

Detecting gravitational radiation from the merger of two black holes was an incredible step forward for our understanding of the universe. It will not practically change your life in any way.

Something for nonequilibrium statistical mechanics

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