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?

Whatever.

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.

Temu’s daily US users cut in half following end of ‘de minimis’ loophole - New York Post

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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

CNN Gets A Big Viewership Bump With Live Telecast Of ‘Good Night, And Good Luck’ - Deadline

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

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

Official website of the International Federation of Sport Climbing. - ifsc climbing

[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.^†

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

Why do North Indians, living in Bangalore, not bother to learn Kannada?

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.

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

What bait should you use for ocean fishing?

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

When he's standing, in front of you

Whatever.

What are some ways to drive women crazy while many men don't know?

(Mumbles of assent)

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

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

What are some mind-blowing facts that sound unreal but are actually true?

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

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

[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."

Chicago Bears offense has 94-yard TD drive in 2 minute drill at minicamp - Windy City Gridiron

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

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

"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?"

The sun's poles have flipped. A spacecraft is watching what happens next. - Mashable