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?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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

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

Do you find Anushka Sen attractive?

[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."

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Why would a man be interested in an ordinary woman while there are very beautiful and fabulous women?

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

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.

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

My stepmother has banned me from the family. Can she legally keep me from going to my father's funeral?

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

Whatever.

(Mumbles of assent)

Why do nearly all of the answers on Quora have “read more” and when I click on it, I get a virus warning every time? Has anyone else had this happen?

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Why do you think Islam oppresses women when Christianity clearly does it more?

When he's standing, in front of you

There you go.^†

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

Raw recap & reactions: Royal chaos - Cageside Seats

[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)

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

Star-forming cloud Chamaeleon I looks like a cosmic masterpiece in new Dark Energy Camera image (video) - Space

Whatever.

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:

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

What made Sally Field a standout choice for "Smokey and the Bandit" despite her reputation as a serious actress after "Sybil"?

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

"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?"

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

Who is the most annoying character in the Office?