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?
09.06.2025 14:38
… then anything is possible. There’s no rule that a Nobel Prize has to make sense.^*
Why wait any longer for the world to begin?
(Mumbles of assent)
Catch Jupiter and Mercury side by side in the evening sky this week - Space
My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.
"Naah, Linnainmaa is a Finn. Can't give it to a bloody Finnish mathematician. Let's go for drinks. Brännvin anyone?"
Whatever.
Why would my husband cheat on me with an ugly fat woman?
"Didn't he do something with Boltzmann in it? That sounds physics-y. RBMs and stuff, eh?"
There you go.^†
[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.
Why did Britain steal Gibraltar from Spain?
(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)
^* 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
Whatever.
[Older voice] "Mmm. What about Hinton, he's widely regarded? Nobody got fired for buying IBM"
"Where can we shoehorn it in? Chemistry is easy 'cos AlphaFold; but what about physics? A bit more challenging, right?"
Why do you think Islam oppresses women when Christianity clearly does it more?
They then move on to selectively provide their own version of history. But hey, it’s OK. They wanted controversy, didn’t they? Whatever.
^† They rationalise their decision thusly:
"Good idea, but how can we wangle something that says 'Physics'?"
How are max different from medical and minimum security prisons?
Fortunately, we are privy to the discussion that led up to this:
[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."
"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?"
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"Good point, I'm sure we can swing it. And let's tack on Hopfield while we're about it."
Why wait any longer for the one you love?
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.
Have you ever been forced to undress for money just once?
You can have your cake and eat it too
When he's standing, in front of you
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: