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?

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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

What species of fish are horse mackerels?

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?"

In the New Testament, Christ quotes the Ethiopian book of Enoch. How do the Sola Scriptura folks square this circle?

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

Whatever.

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Do people really never face any hidden costs or surprises with surgeries in countries with single-payer healthcare like the NHS?

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

[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."

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

What parts of the Bible, if any, are inappropriate to read to children? Why?

"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?"

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

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 come Taiwan is LGBT friendly, yet Japan and South Korea are not?

When he's standing, in front of you

[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.

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

Isn't it great that we have an incoming president who is embracing ideas from the past like manifest destiny? Isn't it greater that Trump is willing to get us more territory and land?

Whatever.

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

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

How does it feel to be in a marriage without any love?

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.

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

Is Florida now unsurvivable because it's an oven due to climate change? It's 11:48 am on May 30th and the heat index in SoFla is 100. I can see it going up to over 130 by July.

There you go.^†

You can have your cake and eat it too

(Mumbles of assent)

When do you start "growing old"?