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?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

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

When a black man and a white woman have a child, does the child become white? If a white man and a black woman have a child, does the child become black?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

(Mumbles of assent)

Do Marines really not need sleep during combat training or in general? If this is true, how and why is this possible?

You can have your cake and eat it too

When he's standing, in front of you

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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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:

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

[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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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.

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

[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 makes certain audiobook narrators so much better than others?

"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)

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

How do I get rid of a cold in 1 day?

Whatever.

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?"

When is the best time for an adult with ADHD to take Ritalin or Adderall to avoid interfering with their sleep?

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

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

There you go.^†

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

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

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

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