An introductory book on neural networks, written a few decades ago, starts with a short history of the field at that time. This included a phase where some phy

An introductory book on neural networks, written a few decades ago, starts with a short history of the field at that time. This included a phase where some physicists began having opinions about the subject, anticipating they might quickly find a model for the brain, with fields, or other physics-like paradigms. Their expectations were that with their superior understanding of all things fundamental, they would rush in, and rush out. Leaving the stunned machine learning researchers dazzled, frazzled, and asking "Who was that masked physicist?!?" Except their ideas went nowhere. I can't find the book, but this story made for a memorable foreword.