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

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

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

What are the extra benefits of a smart TV?

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

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

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

What is some information about unprotected sex and pregnancy?

You can have your cake and eat it too

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.

Whatever.

How did it feel when experiencing gay sex for the first?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

(Mumbles of assent)

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Which current F1 drivers should switch teams based on historical patterns?

"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?"

"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?

What do you think of Hegseth calling The Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, "a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who has made a profession of peddling hoaxes” after team Trump texted him their top-secret war plans on Yemen?

Whatever.

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Why is there so much free porn on the internet?

[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."

When he's standing, in front of you

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

Are you already having anal sex?

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

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

There you go.^†

Do married men know when their wives are having affairs?

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:

[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.

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

How are Hinduism and Sikhism related, considering they both originated in Punjab, India?