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?

When he's standing, in front of you

[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:

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Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

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

Why is (n-1)(n+1)=n^2-1?

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

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?"

If Russia needs the resources to fund the war in Ukraine, why doesn’t it throw open its doors to visa free western tourism? Enough people would be interested, & it would start to get some hard currency as €, CHF, £, SEK, $, JPY in the tills at shops.

Whatever.

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

How can a native English speaker say "it was nice talking to you" in French without using that exact phrase?

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

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

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

What methods do private investigators use to investigate someone in real life?

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

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

(Mumbles of assent)

Why doesn't speeding significantly decrease one’s commute time? I've done a lot of road trips and driving and have experimented by increasing speed by 10–20%, but somehow this never equates to arriving 20% sooner, even on clear roads.

[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.

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

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.

How can I get a girlfriend? I am 26.

You can have your cake and eat it too

There you go.^†

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

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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

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