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?

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

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

Why is the covert narcissist actively avoiding me when they see me everyday?

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

[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."

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Why would my nipples hurt when I touch them?

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:

(Mumbles of assent)

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.

Two University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researchers part of global team that discovered a new object in space - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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

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

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

Why should the US public listen to Lauren Boebert, the queen of hypocrisy tell us, "We need morals back in our nation" when her real-time video is the heartbeat of immoral? Why does her audio not match her video?

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

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

What thing happened to you as a child that you haven’t let go of to this day?

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Can the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) be reversed?

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

"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?"

Whatever.

Why are so many US conservatives in this day and age still against racial mixing? They won't say it in public, but they are still against the mixing between Blacks and whites? Why?

Whatever.

When he's standing, in front of you

There you go.^†

How does one succeed in life?

[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.

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

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

What is the reason for writing X^2 as XX instead of X*X?