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.

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

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Why does Microsoft always create so many ugly, confusing, and ridiculous product names? The worst of them all is ".Net" (which is really confusing).

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

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:

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

[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."

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

Whatever.

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

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

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

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

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"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?"

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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

If you could go back and rewrite the Legend of Korra, what would you change, and why?

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.

There you go.^†

Why do some women squirt and some don't?

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:

Whatever.

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Im a 14 year old girl who doesnt want to wear a hijab but my parents force me to wear one. It makes me dislike it more. Im not ready for one no matter what people say and they get really mad at me. I have bad grades and no motivation. What do I do?

(Mumbles of assent)

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

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

Why are white men so obsessed with Asian women? I'm friends with people from all different backgrounds but I never see my other non-white male friends obsess over or talk about Asian women like I've seen the white ones do.