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

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

[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."

How can parents identify and address early signs of racial bias in young children?

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

"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:

Why cant a narcissist admit when they are wrong?

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

[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.

Whatever.

Did your siblings abuse you growing up? Not your parents, specifically your siblings, or other children in the household you were raised with.

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

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.

What was your wildest experience as a lesbian?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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

Is it okay if I sleep with my brother without my husband knowing?

(Mumbles of assent)

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

Whatever.

M’s Kirby struck in face by 103 mph line drive - Seattle Sports

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

There you go.^†

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:

A kid threw a stone at my car. I confronted his mom (who was nearby). She said, "You can't prove it was my son." How should I have reacted?

[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?"

When he's standing, in front of you

I vibrated my dogs shock collar while it was eating my other dog’s food and now it won’t eat. How do I fix this problem?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

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

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

Do you have any attributes quirks sensitivities abilities etc that you've come to learn most people don't experience? E.g. dream with subtext or experience de ja vu regularly or know you experience life very differently from those around you etc?