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)

Whatever.

Taraji P. Henson says Hollywood went silent after her Oscar nod—until Tyler Perry called - TheGrio

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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

[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."

Oil prices jump more than 3%, adding to last week's surge, as Israel strikes Iran energy facilities - CNBC

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

(Mumbles of assent)

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

There's a new blood test for Alzheimer's. Here's everything you need to know about it. - Live Science

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

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Whatever.

Infamous 'neutron lifetime puzzle' may finally have a solution — but it involves invisible atoms - Live Science

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.

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

David Jolly, a Trump critic and former GOP congressman, to run for Florida governor as a Democrat - AP News

"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?"

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

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Scientists: We Built 'World's Smallest Violin' - Newser

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:

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

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Where you live may affect your risk of dementia, UCSF study finds - San Francisco Chronicle

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

There you go.^†

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

Kuorans, what is your January Spotify wrapped?

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

Are female judges more lenient than male ones?