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?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

When he's standing, in front of you

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

Can a hoodoo or candle spell be used to remove a love spell placed on someone by another person? What is the difference between voodoo and hoodoo?

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

(Mumbles of assent)

Whatever.

Why did you choose not to join Mensa?

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

"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.

Neuroscientists find individual differences in memory response to amygdala stimulation - PsyPost

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

Whatever.

Patriots decline to say whether Stefon Diggs has passed key physical in contract - NBC Sports

"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."

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

How do you cope when your mother doesn't love you?

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.

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

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:

Space pebbles and rocks play pivotal role in giant planet's formation - Phys.org

[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.

There you go.^†

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

Help. I’m 16 and just got spanked by both of my parents for taking the car. What do I do? I want to run off somewhere but I’m so scared that I’ll get spanked again. I’ve never gotten the paddle before and I’m still scared to sit

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

"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?"

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

Dismantling CDC’s chronic disease center ‘looks pretty devastating’ to public health experts - statnews.com

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

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

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

What was the most inappropriate thing your parent caught you doing as a teen? Was in the bedroom, I thought nobody else was home. My sister and I shared that bedroom but I knew she was gone. I didn’t know my dad was home though.