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

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

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

Did the Brits ever carry out high-profile, high-risk missions in World War II like the Americans did with a U-110 in the fictional movie “U-571”?

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

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

(Mumbles of assent)

Witness testifies that Diddy dangled her over a balcony - BBC

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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:

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

Why did Mark Lane harass Helen Markham during an illegally recorded telephone conversation to misidentify Lee Harvey Oswald who she witnessed as the shooter of Tippit?

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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

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

5 Things to Know Before the Stock Market Opens - Yahoo Finance

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.

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

Whatever.

Why do you have to be 18+ to go live on TikTok?

[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."

You can have your cake and eat it too

Whatever.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Spots Powerful Magnetic Explosion Aimed at the Sun’s Surface - The Daily Galaxy

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

When he's standing, in front of you

[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.

Fairphone 6 leaked renders implicate its modular design for easy repairs - Android Central

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

There you go.^†

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

What is unattractive about a nice guy? Why do some women don’t choose nice guys?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

"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?"

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

Threads is testing spoiler text, Zuckerberg says - TechCrunch