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?

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

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:

What is the best way to get my wife to become a hotwife?

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.

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

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

At Chicago baseball stadium, Pope Leo makes his first pitch to America - The Washington Post

A fly on the wall at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

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

There you go.^†

How does one succeed in life?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

[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."

Whatever.

Do you as a gay male enjoy the feeling of getting a penis in your anus?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

If you're quitting a job or anticipating layoffs, don't burn your bridges at work. Boomerang hires are increasing. - Business Insider

You can have your cake and eat it too

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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

Gene mutation found in the bacterium behind the Black Death helped plague conquer the world, scientists say - CNN

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

"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?"

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Scientists Uncover Giant Spiders That Once Terrorized Jurassic Earth - The Daily Galaxy

(Mumbles of assent)

Whatever.

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

What's the most impressive feature of Claude AI according to its users?

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

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

[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.

At what point does trespassing become self defense? What are the necessary conditions for this line to be crossed from trespassing to self defense?