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?

(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."

Why do subpar women think that they are nines and tens?

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

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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

Don't you think Democrats are so full of it stool softener and an enema couldn't help them?

When he's standing, in front of you

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:

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

Does Taylor Swift actually play the guitar, or is it a prop?

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

[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).

Is spinach easy to grow?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

"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?"

What are some signs that someone may be being stalked by an organization or secret society? How can they find out for sure?

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

Whatever.

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

What caused North Korea to go poor when at first it was rich?

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

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.

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Are today’s baseball pitchers faster than a few years ago, or is it that radar guns have improved and get the pitch speed as it is released rather than as it reaches the plate?

There you go.^†

(Mumbles of assent)

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Do girls ever miss their first love?

Whatever.

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

Has your wife made you a cuckold?