Was the Nobel prize for physics? Yes - not that it matters

The Physics Nobel Prize was awarded to the groundbreaking research of John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton on artificial neural networks. This surprised many scientists and caused dissenting opinions, as this topic is commonly perceived as Computer Science - So why the prize in Physics? Instead of relying on opinions, there are robust, data-driven methods from Science of Science to contextualize this award using citation data. This way, we have shown that indeed ``Hopfield's 1982 paper on neural networks [is] indistinguishable from papers published in physics journals'', similar to ``six physics Nobel winning publications'' in interdisciplinary physics. Further, we assessed that interdisciplinary papers like Hopfield's and Hinton's are ripe for a Nobel Prize: Until recently, the Physics Nobel Prize has been used to award traditional physics research impacting physics only; this year's award however shows that the prize has caught up with reality, recognizing interdisciplinary discoveries that impact both physics and other fields. We are hopeful that this recognition will expedite the breakup of disciplinary silos which obstruct out-of-the-box thinking that combines ideas from different disciplines. This breakup is urgently needed to solve the world's big challenges like climate change. Physics itself is undergoing extensive changes and ``spin-offs'', influencing emerging fields like data science that embrace interdisciplinarity. In contrast, clinging to research fields as fixed territories is at best small-minded, at worst harmful. Although we should not discard useful domain knowledge, there is a clear need for better use of data and breaking up silo mentalities.