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?

"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?"

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

Human minds see what we "expect" to see, not what we actually see - Earth.com

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

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

The Sun Is Causing Starlink Satellites To Drop From Space - Daily Kos

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

When he's standing, in front of you

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

A Gigantic Megacomet Is Erupting as It Zooms through the Solar System - Yahoo

There you go.^†

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:

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

Apple releases new iOS 26 beta 1 build to developers - 9to5Mac

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.

(Mumbles of assent)

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

Witness testifies that Diddy dangled her over a balcony - BBC

Whatever.

[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."

"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?"

How is ChatGPT different from Claude AI or Bard?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Whatever.

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

I Used to Dread Taking Creatine—Then I Found These Gummies - The Daily Beast

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

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

[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.

NBA Draft will have tons of international talent, which is to be expected - NBA

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

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

You can have your cake and eat it too

Founder of 23andMe buys back company out of bankruptcy auction - Ars Technica