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posted by janrinok on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the belated-recognition dept.

From the Beeb.

Computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing will feature on the new design of the Bank of England's £50 note.

He is celebrated for his code-cracking work that proved vital to the Allies in World War Two.

The £50 note will be the last of the Bank of England collection to switch from paper to polymer when it enters circulation by the end of 2021.

The note was once described as the "currency of corrupt elites" and is the least used in daily transactions.

However, there are still 344 million £50 notes in circulation, with a combined value of £17.2bn, according to the Bank of England's banknote circulation figures.

The work of Alan Turing, who was educated in Sherborne, Dorset, helped accelerate Allied efforts to read German Naval messages enciphered with the Enigma machine. Less celebrated is the pivotal role he played in the development of early computers, first at the National Physical Laboratory and later at the University of Manchester.

In 2013, he was given a posthumous royal pardon for his 1952 conviction for gross indecency following which he was chemically castrated. He had been arrested after having an affair with a 19-year-old Manchester man.

The Bank said his legacy continued to have an impact on science and society today.

Not as good as a $20, but the least you can do when your government drove a brilliant logician and computer designer to a premature suicide. Rest in Peace, Alan Turing.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Coward, Anonymous on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:24AM

    by Coward, Anonymous (7017) on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:24AM (#867874) Journal

    "it was the law" is the reason they are now putting him on the money. It's Britain's way of saying loudly that the country was wrong. If Turing chose castration instead of prison, he was probably shamed into it.

    I'm certain that many more people were harmed by anti-gay laws and sentiments than laws about government secrets.

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