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.

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

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

How would you respond to Rep. Nancy Mace's claim that the GOP platform is more in line with what the American people want compared to the left?

[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."

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:

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

My wife has a bunch of really attractive friends, and she expects me to never say anything to her about how beautiful they are. Does this seem fair? I love my wife, and just commenting shouldn’t hurt anything, right?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

My waist finally looks like how it did before I had kids but I didn’t lose weight. Why am I still 15 lbs from my starting weight?

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

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

(Mumbles of assent)

Why does Africa have all mineral resources but she is suffering economically?

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

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

What specific economic and social impacts would result if all climate change policies and regulations were immediately repealed worldwide?

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

When he's standing, in front of you

You can have your cake and eat it too

Where are the gay people in India?

"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?"

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

[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 should a young woman do to control sagging breasts?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Whatever.

Whatever.

Should you have a threesome with your best friend and your significant other if the significant other requests it?

There you go.^†

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

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

When do you start "growing old"?