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?
Last Updated: 18.06.2025 06:36
They then move on to selectively provide their own version of history. But hey, it’s OK. They wanted controversy, didn’t they? Whatever.
There you go.^†
Why wait any longer for the world to begin?
Where are the gay people in India?
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?"
… then anything is possible. There’s no rule that a Nobel Prize has to make sense.^*
Should parents force their kids to go to school when they are sick?
[Older voice] "Mmm. What about Hinton, he's widely regarded? Nobody got fired for buying IBM"
"Good idea, but how can we wangle something that says 'Physics'?"
(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)
Whatever.
"Where can we shoehorn it in? Chemistry is easy 'cos AlphaFold; but what about physics? A bit more challenging, right?"
My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.
Why do nice guys rarely or never win?
When he's standing, in front of you
"Good point, I'm sure we can swing it. And let's tack on Hopfield while we're about it."
(Mumbles of assent)
Does a person with schizophrenia hear voices?
"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
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:
SEC clears Trump Media filing, opening door to multi-billion-dollar Bitcoin buy - The Block
^* Fibiger got the 1926 Medicine prize for the discovery of Spiroptera carcinoma (Don’t ask).
Whatever.
"Didn't he do something with Boltzmann in it? That sounds physics-y. RBMs and stuff, eh?"
Have husbands and wives ever had a threesome with someone in real life? How did it happen?
^† 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.
Why wait any longer for the one you love?
Which Bibles can one read and be confident they are reading the inerrant word of God?
You can have your cake and eat it too
[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.
[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."