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:

You can have your cake and eat it too

Why am I not getting any atheists to debate with? Are they scared?

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

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

Whatever.

Which city should one visit between Nice and Cannes? Why?

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

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

When he's standing, in front of you

Why is it called iOS 26? What happened to iOS 19 for iPhone - 9to5Mac

Whatever.

(Mumbles of assent)

[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."

How effective will the Senate-passed bill, S. 4569, the Take It Down Act, which would criminalize the publication of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII) be?

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

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.

[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.

Why do entitled people demand that I pick up after my doggo when he goes to the bathroom? Do they not know that doggy doo decomposes & feeds the plants?

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

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

"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?"

What is world history that not many people know about?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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

What shocking family behavior did you read about in India?

There you go.^†

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

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

Why would the state lie about the Earth's shape? We know that it's flat, but why do they lie and tell us that it is a sphere?

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:

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

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

What is something brutally honest that needs to be said?