With work on machine learning that uses artificial neural networks, John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton “showed a completely new way for us to use computers,” the committee said.

Geoffrey Hinton from and John Hopfield both received this year’s Nobel Prize in physics for their research in the creation of neural networks for computer systems.

Similar flexibility, though in an area with far more profound consequences than ethology, has been demonstrated with regard to this year’s physics prize. Showing a sense of timeliness not always apparent in its deliberations,