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?

[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."

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

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

Were there any friendly fire incidents involving American submarines, aircraft carriers, or battleships during World War II or World War I?

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

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

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

If Jesus was crucified by Governor Pontius Pilate, why does the Quran deny his death?

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

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

Whatever.

Why is the UK facing a long-running housing crisis that experts say will take more than a decade to fix?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

There you go.^†

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Murkowski suggests she could become an Independent in the right circumstance - Politico

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

(Mumbles of assent)

[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.

Who writes and reads novels nowadays?

(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.

A 41-year-old longevity doctor says his 'biological age' is 24. He takes 3 supplements daily. - Business Insider

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

When he's standing, in front of you

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

Key moments from the third week of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ sex trafficking trial - AP News

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

You can have your cake and eat it too

"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?"

Newspaper headlines: Britain 'battle ready' and 'new Maddie search' - BBC

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:

… 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.

Why do people ask stupid questions on Quora when they instead could ask ChatGPT?