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Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

bankofengland.co.uk

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Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#91
post #44
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because £50 notes have always been associated with fraud and money laundering, which has negative connotations for both users and merchants.

Paying for something with £50 notes is a nerve-racking experience rivalled only by attempting to attempting to spend Scottish notes in England (I usually chicken out and just deposit them all at a bank)

Top tip - if you find yourself with a Scottish note in England, use it in a self-checkout machine.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#92
post #83

Would be a good idea on many levels to follow suit and have Turing on an € bank note. His impact is universal.

The € bank notes do not have historical figures on them. Only the coins have historical or royal figures on them depending on the country that minted them.

If the UK had the euro they could put his face on their coins, but well... that's never going to happen anymore.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#93
post #83

Would be a good idea on many levels to follow suit and have Turing on an € bank note. His impact is universal.

The € bank notes do not have historical figures on them. Only the coins have historical or royal figures on them depending on the country that minted them. If the UK had the euro they could put his face on their coins, but well... that's never going to happen anymore.

> that's never going to happen anymore

Give it 15 years...

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#94
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John McAfee on the US $1,000,000 bill?

I don't think either of those deserve to be mentioned in the same way as Alan Turing, and no amount of time passing will change that. Note that Alan Turing was persecuted for what he was , not for what he did . I also don't think there will be an ACM award named for either.

> Note that Alan Turing was persecuted for what he was, not for what he did.

No, he was prosecuted for having sex with other men. That is something he did. Being homosexual was never illegal.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#95
post #23

It's good that Turing gets put on a banknote - and about time. However, the concept art in that article is really ugly. I'm not that familiar with British banknotes - are they usually that messy looking? Every piece of text is in a different font, and it seems pretty vulgar to have a quote on the note at all. There's even drop shadows! It honestly looks like something I'd put together in Corel Draw in the mid-2000s.

I just got back from a trip to the States and I have to say that US money is very boring by comparison to UK money. How on earth do blind/old people deal with the fact that all denominations are practically the same size, design, colour etc?

To assist people with disabilities, you can request a little electronic reader that clips over the corner of the bill:

> the iBill Talking Bank Note Identifier, is now available free of charge from the Treasury Department to any US citizen who is blind or visually impaired.

> It can speak the dollar amount; it can produce a different pattern of tones for each denomination; or it can vibrate silently

> The United States is the only country that prints all denominations of currency in the same size. The US and Switzerland are the only two countries that use the same colors for all of their various bills.

https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technolog...

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#96

These announcements always make me ponder about the people we'll put on bank notes or erect statues in honour of in 50 years and are alive and persecuted today but not recognized by society.

I think Obama will most likely be on a note at some point

Why? His accomplishments aren't extremely notable.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#97
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not very persecuted though.

Trump is. He's having a very hard time these days, poor guy.

Is this an attempt to increase the value of money by inspiring people to burn a lot of it?

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#98

Alan Turing's achievements * Designed the programming of world's first commercial computer (Ferranti Mark 1) * Devised Turing Test, to test whether computer is capable of thinking like a huamn * Got an OBE for his wartime services * Inventor of Turing Machine. To this day, all stored-programme digital computers are modelled on this invention * Built the machine that helped in the breaking of the Enigma code used by t…

> His work shortened the WW2 by atleast 2 years. And was then pushed to suicide by the intelligence agencies of the country he saved hundreds of thousands of lives for.

No, it was just ordinary police and a court conviction that did that. The intelligence agencies likely knew about his orientation long before and did nothing about it - if anything, it was something that could be used to control him.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aubrey de Grey. The future will look back at today like we were savages for not innovating faster to cure aging. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Grey

If history remembers Aubrey De Grey at all I suspect it will be as someone utterly abhorrent for thinking of aging as something to be "cured". Imagine he were right (he's not, for myriad reasons), and he found a way for everyone to live to be 500. He's made clear statements about ceasing pro-creation in favour of extending life spans well beyond what we experience now. What of all the people who would have lived a fu…

How can someone who someone never chose to create have a right to exist?

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be living in a bubble, fifty quid is much less than $100 and I see those notes all the time. Getting currency exchanged before a trip? They give huge bills. Buying a used phone or furniture from Craigslist? Are you going to pay with 100 twenties? New ATMs even ask you the breakdown of bill sizes you are want.

> You might be living in a bubble, fifty quid is much less than $100 and I see those notes all the time. In nearly 40 years I can't think I've ever seen a £50 note, let alone spent one. €50 notes, sure, but Europe is backwards - I saw a €200 note once when buying a ferry ticket > Getting currency exchanged before a trip? They give huge bills. 1990 called and wants its features back. I haven't been to an airport yet t…

> I haven't been to an airport yet that didn't have an ATM.

Those have terrible exchange rates. I’ve used an airport ATM once, and even then that was only because I realised too late that Switzerland wasn’t in the Eurozone.

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