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.

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

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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:

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Where can Ukrainians go if they cannot have shelter and heating this winter?

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

When he's standing, in front of you

Whatever.

Why are most girls not open to the idea of anal sex?

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

"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?"

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

(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."

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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

There you go.^†

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

[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.

Whatever.

What can be done to combat group stalking and harassment by an organized gang or society, particularly when they use universal sound weapons?

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

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

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

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