How did a computer scientist such as Geoffrey Hinton manage...

(Mumbles of assent)

When he's standing, in front of you

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

Why did VP Vance decide to humiliate the President of Ukraine on national TV?

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

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

[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."

What is the best SPF 60 Sunscreen for oily skin?

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Is it true that some Trump voters are saying its good that the stock market is collapsing?

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:

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

What is the potential for "future generative AI software that are like Open AI's Sora" to be fed half-a-page-long "text prompts" to generate fan videos that have "characters, environments, &/or etc" from favorite TV shows, Series, &/or Movies/Films?

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

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

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

What is the typical mentality of the Indian society?

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

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

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

"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?"

Whatever.

There you go.^†

What are some reasons for the widespread dislike of President Trump? In your opinion, has he been a good or bad president?

Whatever.

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

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

Hubble reveals 20-year time-lapse of Uranus' changing atmosphere - TechSpot

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.

[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.

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

How does one succeed in life?

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?

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