How did a computer scientist such as Geoffrey Hinton manage to win a Nobel Prize in physics when computer science already has its own Nobel Prize equivalent in the Turing Awards?

A fly on the wall at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

"Didn't he do something with Boltzmann in it? That sounds physics-y. RBMs and stuff, eh?"

There you go.^†

What is the most heartbreaking thing your child has told you?

"Good idea, but how can we wangle something that says 'Physics'?"

"Hey guys, AI is pretty big so let's centre our prizes on it this year. We can get some attention, and it's all about advertising, at the end of the day, isn't it?"

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Do you like to wear a see-through skirt?

Whatever.

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

When he's standing, in front of you

Has anyone experienced an out of the body experience, as a child, years before you had ever heard the term or understood the implications?

Fortunately, we are privy to the discussion that led up to this:

^* Fibiger got the 1926 Medicine prize for the discovery of Spiroptera carcinoma (Don’t ask).

"Naah, Linnainmaa is a Finn. Can't give it to a bloody Finnish mathematician. Let's go for drinks. Brännvin anyone?"

If you received hand-me-downs as a child, how did they make you feel?

[Older voice] "Mmm. What about Hinton, he's widely regarded? Nobody got fired for buying IBM"

[Younger voice] "But wait a minute, Ising-Lenz goes back to the 1920's. And didn't Hinton plagiarise rather a lot? He also didn't invent modern backprop, did he, that's Linnainmaa? And Amari preceded Hopfield, too. That's not a good look."

[The basic structure of artificial neural networks] has close similarities with spin models in statistical physics applied to magnetism or alloy theory. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes research exploiting this connection to make breakthrough methodological advances in the field of ANN.

What do dreams about dead people mean?

(Mumbles of assent)

Whatever.

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

What are the withdrawal symptoms of Klonopin 1mg?

… then anything is possible. There’s no rule that a Nobel Prize has to make sense.^*

In December 1973, when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, comedian Tom Lehrer dropped his mic and stamped on it—satire had just died.

In awarding prizes, the Nobel Committees often seem only marginally more competent than MTG is at explaining meteorology. And if they can give a literature prize for lyrics like:

Will my parents go to hell if I don't wear hijab, they tried to convince me and they provided it to me but I don't want to wear it?

"Where can we shoehorn it in? Chemistry is easy 'cos AlphaFold; but what about physics? A bit more challenging, right?"

"Good point, I'm sure we can swing it. And let's tack on Hopfield while we're about it."

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

How did you as a human being change while growing up?

You can have your cake and eat it too

They then move on to selectively provide their own version of history. But hey, it’s OK. They wanted controversy, didn’t they? Whatever.

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Are rich people harder workers than poor people as a whole?