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?

You can have your cake and eat it too

There you go.^†

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 is the reason for writing X^2 as XX instead of X*X?

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

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

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

How is bestiality wrong, but killing animals for sport or trophies is considered okay?

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

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.

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

There's no way Republican Trump won all seven swing states. How was he able to cheat and steal the election?

When he's standing, in front of you

Whatever.

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

What makes girls masturbate?

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

[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."

(Mumbles of assent)

Why can't NASA just bite the bullet and launch a plainly simple mission, audited by flat earther peers start to finish that definitively proves to even the smallest minds that the earth is an oblong spheroid, and not flat?

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

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

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

Do you think that drug addiction is a symptom of larger societal ills? What is it about our culture that leaves so many feeling like they're inadequate, trying any ill to find a cure?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Why do you think Filipinos are conservatives?

"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?"

"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)

Will my parents go to hell if I don't wear hijab, they tried to convince me and they provided it to me but I don't want to wear it?

Whatever.

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

[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.

What are some mind-blowing facts that sound unreal but are actually true?