Spin glass models are used in physics to explain how magnetic materials that initially have spins (generating their magnetic moment) in random directions, settle down to have spins aligned over patches or the entire material. They are used as an analogy for subsymbolic machine learning including Boltzmann machines and Hopfield networks.
Used in Chap. 6: page 80
Used in glossary entries: Boltzmann machine, hopfield networks, machine learning