How did a computer scientist such as Geoffrey Hinton manage...

[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 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?

Why does TikTok allow porn stars in its platform? Isn't it aimed at teenagers?

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

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

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

Engineers bring Psyche's thrusters back online - theregister.com

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

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

You can have your cake and eat it too

Scientists Discover Promising New Alzheimer’s Treatment - SciTechDaily

There you go.^†

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

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

If you lived in South Africa, would you support nuclear power as a solution to the country's energy woes?

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:

[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.

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

Samsung is struggling to sell the Galaxy S25 Edge - SamMobile

Whatever.

"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?"

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Why did Lord Shiva lust after Mohini - how can he be the supreme and worthy of devotion if he did such a thing?

(Mumbles of assent)

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

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

Is Jesus God almighty?

Whatever.

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

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.

Why aren't U.S. prisons more like Marine Corps boot camp, were every second of the day there are mandatory activities so that at night everyone is so tired they go to sleep until wakeup at 5:30 am? Would this make prisons safer for all?

When he's standing, in front of you

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