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

"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?"

Can you explain the difference between “mi piace” and “mi piacciono” in Italian?

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

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

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

What nonsense did you hear today in India that made you laugh?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

(Mumbles of assent)

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Am I the bitch for never wanting to talk to my sister again because of something she said while talking back to me?

[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."

When he's standing, in front of you

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

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

You can have your cake and eat it too

How can Democrats not feel hypocritical when they urge Trump not to be vengeful should be become president when the Democrats are trying to put Trump into prison?

Whatever.

There you go.^†

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

Why do many women like tall men?

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.^*

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

What happened to your school bully?

[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.

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

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

My wife has a bunch of really attractive friends, and she expects me to never say anything to her about how beautiful they are. Does this seem fair? I love my wife, and just commenting shouldn’t hurt anything, right?

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?

Whatever.

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