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?

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

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

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Aaron Wiggins Is The Key To Understanding OKC’s Revolutionary Depth - Defector

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

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:

[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."

Why do men like low maintenance women?

Whatever.

When he's standing, in front of you

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.

Can a hoodoo or candle spell be used to remove a love spell placed on someone by another person? What is the difference between voodoo and hoodoo?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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

ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus Reveals He’s Writing a New Musical With AI: ‘It’s Fantastic’ and ‘Such a Great Tool’ - Variety

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

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Can women learn to squirt?

Whatever.

There you go.^†

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

Are there any Hollywood celebrities who never divorced? Why does it seem like celebrities are likely to get divorced frequently?

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

[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.

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

Why is watching a man and a woman have sex considered perverted? It's how we all got here, it's what we do, I say if you want to watch porn then carry on!

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

"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?"

Why are conservatives banning liberal books? Why are conservatives so offended by the teaching of racism and other topics?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

(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.

What is the most gay experience with your dad?