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?

(Mumbles of assent)

[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:

What were some things that the ancient Greeks excelled at compared to the Romans?

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.

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

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

Why do we often have strong feelings for our twin flames, even if they don't feel the same way? Is there a way to make them realize their true feelings for us?

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

When he's standing, in front of you

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

Why cant I motivate myself to go to school (grade 10)?

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

How many couples swap wives?

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

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

What nonsense did you hear today in India that made you laugh?

Whatever.

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

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Will Canadians still buy American products?

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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

Whatever.

What is it like to be the slave in a mistress-slave relationship?

"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.

There you go.^†

What are some sex stories from your college days?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

"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 we explaining today’s “climate change” as driven by human related “green house” gasses when natural “global warming” pushed sea level up to the “shores” of Topeka with no human contribution or even presence? Is Occam’s Rasor applied?