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?

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

When he's standing, in front of you

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

---what are the things which shouldnt be glorified but they are ---

There you go.^†

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

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

Posting Memes With Pride - Vulture

[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.^*

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

"Can God create iron that God cannot bend?" Isn't it unreasonable to ask this about a being believed to have created logic? After all, God can create a logic that we can't understand right now that both are possible at the same time, right?

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.

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

Whatever.

What is the reason behind some people referring to themselves as "nice guys" instead of simply being nice?

"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?"

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

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Solar Storms Are Secretly Taking Down Elon Musk’s Satellites - The Daily Galaxy

You can have your cake and eat it too

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

(Mumbles of assent)

What are the new technological advancements we should adopt?

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.

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

Fervo Energy lands $206M in financing to build massive geothermal power plant - TechCrunch

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Midea is recalling its U-shaped air conditioners because of potential mold growth - The Verge

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

[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.

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

The Planetary Society reissues urgent call to reject disastrous budget proposal for NASA - The Planetary Society