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?

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

When he's standing, in front of you

[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."

Has anyone been spanked by their parents after becoming an adult?

Whatever.

(Mumbles of assent)

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 do you think of the 2 female 18 and 19 year-old German tourists, detained in Honolulu, strip-searched, put in green jumpsuits, placed in a holding cell and the next day deported, for the terrible crime of not pre-booking a hotel for their trip?

There you go.^†

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

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

Do you think it is likely that Maegor was presented a young dragon at some point, almost to the point of full-bonding, only to scorn it for Balerion in the end? If so, which one could it have been?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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:

Have husbands and wives ever had a threesome with someone in real life? How did it happen?

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

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

Atheists claim that Earth is 10 billion years old, yet there are no fossils that old. What do you have to say for yourselves for lying?

[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.

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Whats the rule that makes "please" pronounced the same as "pleas"?

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

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Whatever.

What is your opinion on the band Nickelback? Why do they receive criticism from some people?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

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

[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.

My blog is new. I need 10 article posts for my blog. How much should I pay for it?

"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?"

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

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

How much of lounge pianists playing is from repertoire, and how much is improvised?