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?

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

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.

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

If a person stops thinking one or two words in a second or half second means he had stopped thinking for half second?

There you go.^†

Whatever.

When he's standing, in front of you

Kuorans, what are some things unique to your country?

Whatever.

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Is it wrong that I picked to be a Christian (as a teenager/14-year-old) even with knowing all of the information about other religions/atheism?

(Mumbles of assent)

[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."

[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.

Why do some straight men enjoy wearing women's lingerie?

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

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

You can have your cake and eat it too

Are democrats eating crow?

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

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

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

Are people who cite the 2nd Amendment honestly familiar with what it establishes?

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:

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

"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?"

Rabid fox bites person in Raleigh - WRAL.com

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

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

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

My parents force me (15yo atheist) to go to church, and there’s this thing called Small Sundays where we discuss the Bible in groups, there are questions asked about the Bible. What am I supposed to do when they ask?

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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

Why would the state lie about the Earth's shape? We know that it's flat, but why do they lie and tell us that it is a sphere?