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?

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

[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."

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

Dear atheist, do you realise that there is a God watching over you who will one day judge and condemn you for every wrong thing you have said and done before casting you into the lake of fire?

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

Whatever.

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

(Mumbles of assent)

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

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Whatever.

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

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 do females hate MGTOW so much?

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

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

What do you love to do at night when you’re alone?

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

[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.

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 are black women the largest unmarried group in the United States of America?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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"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?"

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

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

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

There you go.^†

When he's standing, in front of you

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