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?

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

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

Can a mother forget her child after she puts him or her up for adoption?

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

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

(Mumbles of assent)

Who are the archers in Genesis 49:23?

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.

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?"

Gene mutation found in the bacterium behind the Black Death helped plague conquer the world, scientists say - CNN

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:

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

[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.

Users Are Leaving Google Drive for This 2TB Cloud Plan - PCMag

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

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

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

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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."

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

Why is Reddit blocked by the Indonesian government?

There you go.^†

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

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

Hic perferendis in et impedit quo.

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Whatever.

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Why does a college girl cover her face with a scarf in Bangalore?

When he's standing, in front of you

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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

Private-sector firms added just 37,000 jobs in May, the lowest total in more than two years - CNN