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?

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.

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

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

Was there any slavery of white people that actually compares to the transatlantic slave trade? I’m not baiting or anything actually genuinely curious and want to know.

[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.

[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."

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

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

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

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

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

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

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:

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"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?"

There you go.^†

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Why do men love boobs (irrespective of big or small)?

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

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

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

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(Mumbles of assent)

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

When he's standing, in front of you

You guys are talking about having sex with dogs. I heard a news man was trying to have sex with a female dog and got stuck inside. Is that possible? How does it feel inside a dog’s vagina?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Whatever.

You can have your cake and eat it too

If we do not know the name of the father of a child, e.g. a foundling, an illegitimate, etc., then to whom should the bin or the binti of the child's name be applied?

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Whatever.

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