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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?

12.06.2025 19:35

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

Whatever.

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

What would happen if the Soviet Union had simply annexed Manchuria after World War 2 or kept it independent as a puppet state allied them and separate from China as China was too weak too oppose it anyway?

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."

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

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You can have your cake and eat it too

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

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

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

(Mumbles of assent)

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

Whatever.

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

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

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

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

Why do some people admire Latin American cultures but not want to be from or live in those countries?

"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?"

^† 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:

How many wishes do people get on their birthday?

[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.

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

There you go.^†

We now told, by Senator Grassley, that on the FBI form about the Biden bribery story, there is a Burisma exec who says he has 17 tapes of his deal with the Biden. 15 of Hunter and 2 of Joe Biden? What would this do to Hunter/Joe Biden if released?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

When he's standing, in front of you

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.

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