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?

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

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

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.

Logan Gilbert sees velocity dip in rehab start | Mariners injury updates - The Seattle Times

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

"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?"

Scientists Just Discovered a ‘Super-Earth’ : Atmosphere, Size, Distance… It Has It All! - The Daily Galaxy

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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:

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

Nutritionists Are Sharing Alcohol “Rules” You Should Really Be Following, Including Women Having No More Than One Drink Per Day - BuzzFeed

^* 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'?"

(Mumbles of assent)

Hometown hero: Suárez soaks up the spotlight in Mexico City - NASCAR.com

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Whatever.

There you go.^†

Why didn't people like the Game of Thrones ending?

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

When he's standing, in front of you

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Voluptatibus nesciunt enim provident in.

[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."

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

Whatever.

It’s time to let Iron Galaxy make a brand new Tony Hawk game, and wipe the worst one from history - Video Games Chronicle

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

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

[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.

Supreme Court lets DOGE access Social Security data of millions of Americans - The Washington Post

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

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

NASA’s Chandra Sees Surprisingly Strong Black Hole Jet at Cosmic “Noon” - NASA (.gov)