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?
Last Updated: 25.06.2025 04:59
When he's standing, in front of you
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.
You can have your cake and eat it too
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… then anything is possible. There’s no rule that a Nobel Prize has to make sense.^*
"Naah, Linnainmaa is a Finn. Can't give it to a bloody Finnish mathematician. Let's go for drinks. Brännvin anyone?"
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:
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"Good point, I'm sure we can swing it. And let's tack on Hopfield while we're about it."
Fortunately, we are privy to the discussion that led up to this:
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A fly on the wall at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
[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.
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They then move on to selectively provide their own version of history. But hey, it’s OK. They wanted controversy, didn’t they? Whatever.
[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."
There you go.^†
^† They rationalise their decision thusly:
[Older voice] "Mmm. What about Hinton, he's widely regarded? Nobody got fired for buying IBM"
Whatever.
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"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)
(Mumbles of assent)
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"Where can we shoehorn it in? Chemistry is easy 'cos AlphaFold; but what about physics? A bit more challenging, right?"
"Didn't he do something with Boltzmann in it? That sounds physics-y. RBMs and stuff, eh?"
My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.
Molestiae omnis voluptatem sed assumenda et.
Whatever.
^* Fibiger got the 1926 Medicine prize for the discovery of Spiroptera carcinoma (Don’t ask).
"Good idea, but how can we wangle something that says 'Physics'?"