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?
11.06.2025 04:01
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.
My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.
Why does Africa have all mineral resources but she is suffering economically?
Whatever.
Whatever.
[Older voice] "Mmm. What about Hinton, he's widely regarded? Nobody got fired for buying IBM"
How does it feel to be in a marriage without any love?
"Naah, Linnainmaa is a Finn. Can't give it to a bloody Finnish mathematician. Let's go for drinks. Brännvin anyone?"
[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."
"Didn't he do something with Boltzmann in it? That sounds physics-y. RBMs and stuff, eh?"
Should parents force their kids to go to school when they are sick?
^* Fibiger got the 1926 Medicine prize for the discovery of Spiroptera carcinoma (Don’t ask).
A fly on the wall at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Why wait any longer for the world to begin?
Why am I so afraid that gun owners have set traps to kill me outside my house or my car?
Why wait any longer for the one you love?
"Good idea, but how can we wangle something that says 'Physics'?"
Fortunately, we are privy to the discussion that led up to this:
Why is it rare for someone to despise both the Democrats and Republicans?
They then move on to selectively provide their own version of history. But hey, it’s OK. They wanted controversy, didn’t they? Whatever.
… 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."
Should India conduct another air strike to attack Pakistan over the Pahalgam attack?
There you go.^†
"Where can we shoehorn it in? Chemistry is easy 'cos AlphaFold; but what about physics? A bit more challenging, right?"
(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)
^† They rationalise their decision thusly:
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:
(Mumbles of assent)
What is an appropriate response to someone saying "merci" in French?
When he's standing, in front of you
[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.
"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?"