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

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

How will the international community, especially the United Nations and major powers like the US, respond to the breakdown of the Gaza cease - fire by Israel on March 18 and the resulting large - scale conflict?

"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."

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Vernon Reid on Why Sly and the Family Stone Were the Greatest American Band - Rolling Stone

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

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.

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Atheists who have read the Bible and think that contains immoral things, why do you assume that?

[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.

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

There you go.^†

How do you take your erotic photos and how do you choose the poses?

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

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

[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."

Libtards argue Obama deported more people than Trump, but if that were true why weren't they comparing Obama to Idi Amin?

Whatever.

When he's standing, in front of you

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

What makes Nigerian scammers skilled at impersonating people? Is their success a result of intelligence or other factors?

Whatever.

"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?"

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

Do people of NYC drive around Central Park all the time? Is there any subway tunnel to cross the park quickly? Is it annoying for people and does it cause traffic?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

(Mumbles of assent)

Why do I want to suck cock, after smoking methamphetamine?

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:

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

How do I deal with autistic burnout/meltdown/shutdown when cooking?