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?

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.

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

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

CD PROJEKT RED and Epic Games Present The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo at The State of Unreal 2025! - cdprojekt.com

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

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

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

Instant analysis: Andreyanov has impressed CBJ brass - NHL.com

(Mumbles of assent)

Whatever.

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

I have received a fake legal notice, with unreachable phone number and unidentified address and fake lawyer enrollment number. The notice has caused my family severe stress. I know the person who might have done this illegal act. What should I do?

There you go.^†

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Stop Work Orders At NASA JPL - NASA Watch

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

"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?"

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

ChatGPT future just revealed — get ready for a ‘super assistant’ - Tom's Guide

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Tea, berries, dark chocolate and apples could lead to a longer life span, flavonoid study finds - Medical Xpress

Whatever.

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

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

Have you ever been a victim of gaslighting? What happened?

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

[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."

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:

What are examples of real life forced feminization?

When he's standing, in front of you

[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?"

Have you experimented with bestiality?