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?

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

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

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

Jenny from Perth writes – my partner is the life of the party, women and men adore him. But at home, he gets angry at us for the silliest reasons and never nice words me or our kids, always putting us down. Should I stay or leave him?

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

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

Can trans people tell me what the criteria for a woman is excluding self identification (facts do not rely on self belief)?

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

When he's standing, in front of you

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Why do you think Filipinos are conservatives?

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

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

Whatever.

What does 'Whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys’ mean (Ezekiel 23:20)?

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:

There you go.^†

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

If atheists are so positive that there is no God, where is their proof that He does not exist?

[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.

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

Kuorans can you write a sad story about kpop?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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.

"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?"

What do you remember that 95% of us have forgotten?

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.

(Mumbles of assent)

Why does cocaine makes me want to dress up and get fuck

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Whatever.

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Renault CEO and architect of Alpine F1 project stepping down - The Race