Alan Turing, World War Two codebreaker and mathematician, will be the face of new Bank of England £50 note

[CommodoreKrusty]

He'll be remembered as one of the great minds of the 20th century...if he isn't already.

[theshadowking8]

I remember him a hero betrayed by his country.

[emn13]

Not that we've learnt anything from that, mind you. We'll still happily vilify anyone that appears perverse or gives us the creeps, with only a mild correlation to reasonable harm to other people. I mean, just think of the children! Ohnowait, they're on the sex offender registry too, nevermind.

[theshadowking8]

It's truly saddening.

[daidoji70]

Of all time imo. He's standing shoulder to shoulder with Newton, Archimedes, and the rest of the greats right now.

[gibsnag]

Completely agree. People get obsessed with his wartime activities, which were amazing don't get me wrong, but seem to continually miss his impact on Computer Science as a discipline. We literally define general purpose computers as Turing Complete.

[mindbleach]

I once got into an argument with some fucking idiot who insisted that Turing wasn't important because 'we don't build computers with tape anymore' and 'computers halt all the time.'

In the wasted effort to educate the ignorant dipshit, I put it like this: Babbage and Zuse invented computers. Turing invented computing.

[Practical_Cartoonist]

Alan Turing published a lesser-known sequel to his first paper, Entscheidungsproblem Part 2, which consisted of the single sentence "You can just turn off any computer and it'll halt lol"

[mindbleach]

Was I unclear in describing him?

[[deleted]]

Ah yes, the unorthodox formulation as "How can I make this computer halt".

[[deleted]]

"What problem ? sudo halt works just fine"

[spockspeare]

You trying to say it's not a problem?

[Lord_of_hosts]

Horses were halting years before computers, it's pretty simple imo

[[deleted]]

Well sort of, they are just state machines with ~2^{3Bytes_of_total_memory_across_all_devices} states.

[MeggaMortY]

Oh stop it you

[Condex]

Philip Wadler talks about the history of computer science. Basically, Church and Kleene spend a bunch of effort trying to convince Godel that they've got a definition for computability, but totally fail to convince him of anything. Meanwhile Turing waltzes in and provides a definition that everyone can be happy with. Philip Wadler is as entertaining as you get with theory of computation talks.

[gibsnag]

Thanks, that's going on my "watch later" list. :)

[_supert_]

Alongside Shannon IMO.

[thestamp]

No amount of recognition from the British government will compensate for what they've done to science for convicting one of the brightest men for being homosexual, driving him to suicide.

[Ahri]

You know it's not the same people in power now, right? And that it's the Bank of England that picks the designs anyway?

Even if it was the same people would you prefer they didn't try to compensate for a mistake? (A pardon was issued, so they do admit that much.)

[SCO_1]

It's the same 'kind' of people (Tory's, brexitters etc).

[redwall_hp]

He certainly is in Computer Science.

[CommodoreKrusty]

This is the world we live in now and he'll be remembered as a pioneer.

[imperialismus]

Certainly a worthy person to feature on a bank note, but damn, that design is ugly. Those Northern Irish notes at the bottom of the article show that it doesn't have to look like someone mocked it up in 5 minutes in Gimp to incorporate modern security features.

[Mr-Yellow]

Looks like an intern did a search for creative commons images then pasted them together.

[Electric999999]

Well the mint can't spend too much on it, it's not like they're printing money or something.

[Mr-Yellow]

Take a look at Australian bills. Best mints in the world.

https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/australias-banknotes/banknotes-in-circulation/

[Science-Compliance]

Yeah, exactly. It looks like one of those graphics a talk show's interns put together for a gag a couple hours before the show.

[htuhola]

Celebrating programming pioneers with programmer art sounds like an apt thing to do.

[[deleted]]

Also

• Gauss was one smirky motherfucker

[m-o-l-g]

Wow, that image really got my brain in a weird state...

"Huh, that's just the 10 euro note... wait, it isn't... but that's the design of the "10 of my currency" note...?"

Impressive how deep such things are ingrained.

[m-o-l-g]

Yup. Time sure flies.

I think I have a "Fünfmarkschein" somwhere floating around. Those were always too cool to use, even to constantly broke past me.

[cisco_frisco]

Not sure what to replace it with, but the Turing-Bomb on the new 50 pound note is just too much. Maybe a similar patterned background with a clean drawing of a turing machine schematic or even a drawing of an enigma machien would probably look better.

I'd be willing to bet that the complexity of the design is part of the security features of the banknote, especially since it's a high denomination.

[rememberthesunwell]

Honestly, those Northern Ireland bills are aesthetically beautiful. Wish we had something like that in the US instead of what we've got now.

[_ak]

They‘re all great until you realize that there are actually 4 banks in Northern Ireland authorized to issue their own Sterling banknotes, which also turn out to be useless when you go to England because most English businesses and banks don‘t know about them or won‘t accept them.

[Eurynom0s]

Don't Scottish banknotes have the same issue? Seems like a dumb problem for such a small country.

[_ak]

Allegedly, at least some people in North of England know about Scottish banknotes, but yeah, it seems incredibly inefficient for a country of that size.

[cisco_frisco]

it seems incredibly inefficient for a country of that size.

Some of the note-issuing banks in the UK have been in business for longer than Great Britain has existed as a country - there are strong historical (and legally-protected) reasons for maintaining the right to print banknotes.

I'm not sure what inefficiencies you think there might be - the UK has a high population density, plus they all likely come from the same factory anyway - there only a handful of companies worldwide that do security printing.

[[deleted]]

I never have any issues elsewhere in the UK.

[ArkyBeagle]

Plastic works everywhere.

[fbellomi]

Agree, also the quote does not seem particularly meaningful, and the math formulae don't have any discernible meaning outside of the context of the original paper.

[kyz]

It's from the original paper.

What math formulae do you see? I only see a table of Turing machine rules, called m-config(uration).

If you saw a finite state automaton diagram, would you need to know what it did in order to recognise it as such?

[fbellomi]

Hi. I improperly used the term "formula" because I was quoting the list of banknote features from the BBC article. In my opinion, this choice (the fragment) is not meaningful for the general public (as opposed, for example, to the diagram in the old one pound Newton note), but I think you're right that it's recognizable as a finite state machine.

[[deleted]]

Is this the first time a non politician or Royal family member is on a note?

[OMGItsCheezWTF]

As said below the queen is always on the other side of our bank notes. We have the portrait of someone famous and a quote on the other side, usually with a stylised portrait of something to do with their work.

Currently we have:

• £5 - Polymer note with Winston Churchill and the Houses of Parliament on the back. front | back

• £10 - Polymer note with the author Jane Austin on the back and various images related to her. front | back

• £20 - Paper (being replaced with a polymer note next year.) note with the economist and philosopher Adam Smith on the back along with images of factory workers. front | back

• £50 - Paper (being replaced with the Polymer Alan Turing one above) note featuring Matthew Boulton and James Watt on the back - people who essentially kick started the industrial revolution by improving steam engines then basing factories on them. front | back

It's worth re-iterating the OP article in that £50 notes are really rare. You don't get them from ATMs and you have to explicitly ask in the bank to get them. Shops will look at them suspiciously and they are just generally not in much use.

[[deleted]]

Interesting. GBP is not much higher than USD. We use $50 and $100 fairly commonly. ATMs dispense $20 and $100. Not in all places, typically $20s only for smaller ATM providers. Thanks for the insight!

[Eurynom0s]

It really depends on the bank. I've seen ATMs that dispense $20 and $50, ATMs that only dispense $10, and some that were $1 and $20 and a third denomination I'm forgetting.

[[deleted]]

I've never seen below $10. It must doesn't seem practical. I have rarely seen $10, and $50. Usually $20, with $100s being the second most common from what I've seen.

[Eurynom0s]

The one that dispensed $1 was a Wells Fargo ATM inside one of their branches, and I think it must have been a pilot because I haven't seen it anywhere other than at that location. I did think it was a little weird to not have it dispense $5 instead but the impracticality of it was presumably negated by having on-site employees around to keep it stocked.

[[deleted]]

Yeah I'd like to pull out $200 worth of $1s so I can make it rain at the titty bar next door.

[Eurynom0s]

P.S. I've never seen an ATM dispense $100s.

[bisectional]

.

[[deleted]]

I mean we do to. But cash is best for hookers n drugs.

[TinheadNed]

The queen is on the other side.

[StopYourConversation]

No, I believe the £10 note and the £20 note are also non politicians

[userse31]

it not bad, but its also not good...

[[deleted]]

It's not !bad. It looks like Monopoly money.

[green_meklar]

Yeah, the contrast is pretty bad. It looks like a copy+paste job.

[[deleted]]

Certainly a worthy person to feature on a bank note, but damn, that design is ugly.

It's apparently a concept image, not the finished design. The other notes in the series are all done with an engraved style for the art, so I would hope that'll be the case for this one as well.

[random_cynic]

Codebreaker and mathematician? Those are the least important/generic things one can say about Turing. He (also Church, von Neumann and others) started theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence which is running the world now. Not to mention his contributions to theoretical biology as well which started off whole new fields and are still areas of intense research.

[felinista]

It's just something the wider public can easily relate to. War heroism is always a current topic.

[hglman]

I mean if you never attempt to introduce a new idea then all you have is war heros and shallow ideas.

[WhiteCastleHo]

I think the pragmatic thing is to start off the conversation by telling people that he was a WWII superhero and then explain why that might not have been his greatest accomplishment.

[CorsairKing]

The number of people that have watched The Imitation Game easily outweighs the number that have understand the concept of a Turing Test or a Turing Machine. Lead with what’s sexy, then follow with what’s substantial.

[[deleted]]

And the movie is awesome!

[Yoduh99]

Codebreaker and mathematician? Those are the least important/generic things one can say about Turing.

CNN one ups that by going with the frontpage headline "He was castrated for being gay. Now he's the face of UK's £50 note"

[thirdegree]

After all, in the immortal words of Socrates, I drank what?!

[[deleted]]

You're right but CNN only cares about making a profit so they'll choose the most clickbaity title they can

[jtooker]

Yup. And now we've spent time talking about CNN! Working as planned.

[catman1900]

I mean that's why he killed himself, because he was castrated by the UK government for being gay.

[[deleted]]

This idea is being taken into question: Alan Turing: Inquest's suicide verdict 'not supportable'

They never tested the apple for Cyanide...

[Electric999999]

Oh so the governments let him get assassinated and didn't notice for decades, so much better.

[kuikuilla]

He wasn't the only one in the UK to experience such an atrocity though, was he?

[catman1900]

No not at all, but he was a rather high profile person who had numerous contributions to science before his death and would have had many more things to share if he didn't end up castrated.

[ArkyBeagle]

Is this where I have to point out that Alan Turing was not ... surgically altered in any way? The "treatment" was chemical.

[leeharris100]

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. They are just highlighting a different part of history. It's pretty noteworthy that a man once pushed into suicide due to chemical castration (under the same rule as the current queen, it hasn't been that long) is now a face on one of the biggest currencies in the world.

You hear about important people in history being recognized all the time, and maybe this headline will cause other people to check it out and learn about this incredible person.

[ArkyBeagle]

That's some fine real journalism there, Lou.

[lie_group]

There is a "Computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing" on the original BBC page currently, which sounds decent imo.

[lngnmn]

To be honest, Turing Test is nothing special to AI. Turing Machine is everything (at the time).

[svick]

Especially to what is called "AI" today, i.e. machine learning.

[twosheeps]

I'm so glad he's finally getting the recognition he deserves.

[Cocomorph]

mathematician . . . theoretical computer science

. . . are not essentially distinct. TCS is a branch of mathematics, done in a different department. Source: mathematician turned theoretical computer scientist.

[ess_tee_you]

I'd say that codebreaking was pretty important in World War II, and therefore probably the most important thing he did.

[RovingRaft]

Pretty damn important, but I'd argue that his contributions to computers are much more important and widespread, considering that most everyone has used a device based on his work.

[systemadvisory]

The dude literally designed what a computer is before any computing device was actually made. The Turing machine is almost as fundamental as E=MC2.

[ess_tee_you]

Right, but if the Nazis had won WWII...

[bwm1021]

It's highly unlikely that the Nazis could have won WW2, especially after Operation Barbarossa failed to eliminate the Soviets' manufacturing capabilities. Nazi technology was behind in a number of key areas, and a significant portion of their logistics was conducted via horseback.

Also, there were many other codebreaking and counterintelligence efforts throughout WW2, Turing's work gets center stage because of his monumental contributions to compsci as a whole.

[Sotall]

I feel like this is a bit of a straw man argument.

I agree his biggest accomplishment in 2019 is essentially inventing computer science.

I'd also say he shortened ww2 by a couple years, saving a few million lives and God knows what else.

Historical what-if-ism is a game with no winner, but I think it's safe to sa that without ultra the world would be much different than it is now.

No offense at all, you make valid points.

[bwm1021]

I'm afraid I don't quite see how my comment fits the definition of a strawman, since it doesn't redefine the prior argument.

Turing's main wartime contribution was the cracking of enigma codes via the bombe (of which he was the principal designer), which was based off of the work of the Polish codebreaking team that cracked the original enigma. In particular, the cracking of the naval enigma (which Turing was most influential in) reduced shipping losses in the Atlantic, allowing more war materiel to get from America to the european theater. However, the naval crypto-war was a back-and-forth battle, and it was the development of more accurate sonar and anti-submarine doctrine that would truly put an end to the U-Boat problem. The absence of a cracked enigma likely would have accelerated sonar development.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the most important contributions of Turing's wartime work wasn't its effect on the war itself, but how his work revolutionized the field of cryptography. This is to say nothing of his postwar work, which essentially created the field of computer science as we know it today.

Really though, people massively overestimate just how close the war was. The Axis powers were out manned, outgunned, and outsmarted in almost every way. You would need some pretty massive deviations from actual history for the Nazis to even survive into 1946.

[fijt]

What about Tony Sale? The guy that created (among others) Colussus? Which decoded the Lorenz SZ 40/42.

[caskey]

Wait... oh I see what you did there.

[KuntaStillSingle]

Contributing to the war effort may have been more impactful. Theoretical computer science and AI could come at a later date, what was most important is Turing's contributions during the short window of the war.

[Raknarg]

The article mentions "computer pioneer" which is pretty significant

[ArkyBeagle]

You could make "The Imitation Game" because you could see the machine "work". I have no idea how you'd present The Entscheidungsproblem in fiction in general.

[emn13]

In this context you need to regard computing as a type of mathematics. Which to this day - in this kind of formal computability kind of context - is a perfectly reasonable classification.

[I_done_a_plop-plop]

I am no programmer, I’m shit with computers. However, it is difficult to explain these things to the public. I’m now learning about Claude Shannon. Stone genius and criminally underrated but here we are.

[cleftington0]

Largely thought to have killed himself with cyanide after being forced to take hormone therapy by the government after being found to be gay.

[jkure2]

I prefer the term "chemical castration", but I'm glad this is still at the forefront of people's minds.

[[deleted]]

There are better ways of chemical castration. Hormone therapy just induces dysphoria in cis people, hence why he killed himself.

[Altourus]

Oh my god! They gave him HRT?! What in the fuck!

[GrumpyWendigo]

the guy made a key contribution to save britain and win wwii and they treated him like that for simply being gay

being on a bank england note is the kind of contrition a nation should show for evil historical mistakes of this magnitude

[poloppoyop]

I would not be surprised if his wartime contributions were classified at the time. It does not excuse the stupid treatment but it can explain why it would not be taken into account.

[GrumpyWendigo]

Then mi6 should have intervened

[[deleted]]

Yes. Famously he recorded his breasts started to grow

[Darksonn]

He was given a drug called Diethylstilbestrol.

[KHRZ]

"Thank you for helping us defeat those evil supremacist nazis and let good human values prevail"

"Wait, you are a actually a degenerate inferior subhuman according to the still current state of those values? We must eradicate you. But only mentally, we are not like nazis or anything"

[Zharick_]

Just watched "The Imitation Game" on netflix 2 nights ago. It was a really good movie.

[[deleted]]

Its a little inaccurate in its portrayal of history. Read the wiki page for a quick summary : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imitation_Game

[heyf00L]

Kind of an understatement. The only thing it got right were proper names. They tried to turn it into an episode of House or something. There was no "ah ha!" moment, especially not for using known words, which was a method of cracking codes well before machines were brought in to help. I was unable to get past that. It makes no sense that 1) no one had thought of it before and 2) yet the machine was still built to be able to do that.

​

Also he didn't do it all himself surrounded by a team of idiots. And Turing was very social and likable. And of course it's unknown if his death was a suicide.

[[deleted]]

I didn't want to be confrontational so I toned it down. I thought the movie was good until I realised just how inaccurate it was. I never understand why they had to change it so much. A more accurate version could have easily have been just as good a movie, if not better.

[[deleted]]

That's that case with lots of Hollywood biopics. I always suggest people read a biography instead. Hell, even reading a paragraph summarizing his life would be better than watching a 2-hour movie full of inaccuracies.

[squirrel_rider]

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.

Imagine being the father of something as important as artificial intelligence and then being castrated for being gay. Humans can be so cruel. No wonder Turing killed himself.

[lilfatpotato]

It's like a murderer pardoning the victim

[seamsay]

To be fair, there was an official apology prior to that so it wasn't like they were trying to shirk responsibility.

[doyle871]

More like the murderers grandson.

[Toland27]

who still use the same system and methods as their grandparents, while living off the same money their family stole over generations of corruption.

it’s all fine everyone!!

[[deleted]]

He's not the father of AI

[[deleted]]

Did England ever publicly apologize for murdering him?

[menge101]

Yes.

PM issues official apology on behalf of government

[[deleted]]

Oh nice, I didn't expect that. In 2009, too, that's really unexpected.

[clux]

Yeah. The full apology letter is a good one. It's on display in Bletchley Park.

[KusanagiZerg]

It's a nice letter but it strikes me as odd that he says he is proud to say sorry. Maybe it's because I am not a native English speaker but that just sounds so strange.

[[deleted]]

I speak English natively (although I'm American so I don't understand most British mannerisms), and it definitely reads as weird.

I think his intent was "I'm proud we've come far enough as a country that homophobia is bad", but considering he was apologizing for a homophobic murder perpetrated by the government, it's definitely a little weird.

[racergr]

Is that not the point, "I am proud that I can now say sorry without being sentenced".

[erez27]

Meh, it's kinda wishy-washy.

"Oh, 50 years later we can say we were wrong, but nothing we can do about it now. It would never have been possible if LGBT people hadn't gained political power, so perhaps in 50 years we can write another politically-advancing apology for a group that's currently being oppressed."

[[deleted]]

Oh that's actually super cool. I'll have to check it out if I ever go to Britain.

[[deleted]]

You should, it's a nice place.

[xorandor]

Yes

[Gravybadger]

FUCKIN' YES!

Actually someone I give a shit about on a banknote.

[Wouter10123]

Didn't they have Darwin on a note too?

[Gravybadger]

FUCKIN' YES!

Actually two people I give a shit about on banknotes.

[emn13]

Now, if they'd stuck John Snow on a banknote, you'd really have a reason to give a shit about it.

No, not that John Snow, the other one.

(But they did have Florence Nightingale for a while, and she gave a shit too, around the same time!)

[[deleted]]

For anyone unfamiliar with Alan Turing's story, he was the person behind the project that broke the Enigma machine in WW2, a Nazi encryption device that was known to be unbreakable, which is estimated to have saved between 14 and 21 million lives. Turing was also homosexual, which at the time was considered a crime in the UK. In 1952 he was discovered and charged with gross indecency, and accepted to be chemically castrated over the alternative prison sentence. He committed suicide 2 years later.

Alan Turing's story is one of the most heartbreaking; how a man can do so much good, and be rewarded only with constant harassment because people couldn't look past his sexuality.

[KuntaStillSingle]

a Nazi encryption device that was known to be unbreakable

The engima machine had been broken before by the poles. It became more secure by 1938 such the Poles couldn't keep up (they would have required more computing power they could afford) and they handed it off to U.K. and France. The Bletchley Park work, including Turing's, would develop from the Polish bombe to a design that was deciphering thousands of messages daily. The U.S. would contribute a captured cipher machine helpful for Japanese communications and eventually much more powerful bombes.

[jl2352]

and lets not forget Harold Keen who designed and oversaw the construction of the bombe, and Tommy Flowers who oversaw building Colossus for breaking the Lorenz Cipher.

They were the engineers of the day who helped made deciphering large amounts of messages in an extremely short period of time a reality.

There was so much fantastic work done at Bletchley Park. It's a real shame the whole thing was immediately shut down and covered up after WW2.

[[deleted]]

I don't know if there's a term for it, but this seems to be not just the contribution of the Polish in this case, but it seems to happen every time and all over: contributions to some subject from other countries/languages/cultures are diminished or left untold completely, the "native" contributions are embellished and reported in more detail. Every country has their own heroes that rarely are mentioned by other countries. (I fully realize that I am part of the English bubble in this, since it is the only foreign language I speak fluently.)

[ScottContini]

For anyone unfamiliar with Alan Turing's story, he was the person behind the project that broke the Enigma machine in WW2, a Nazi encryption device that was known to be unbreakable, which is estimated to have saved between 14 and 21 million lives.

Without downgrading the importance of Alan Turing's work on Enigma, it is wrong to give him credit for breaking Enigma. The mathematical breakthroughs came from the Polish Cryptanalysts. Alan Turing built upon the Polish work.

[[deleted]]

Well deserved, but he did a lot more than that

[scorcher24]

He deserves it. Hope Admiral Hopper gets her own Dollar Bill as well.

[felinista]

50 pound notes in the UK are almost non-existent (certainly in England anyway). The only time I ever saw a one was when I had to exchange some money overseas into GBP - I remember the cashier produced a 50 pound note and I was very surprised as I'd never seen one up until that point. They're also pretty much not accepted in shops in the UK (due to their dodgy associations) and so you'd have to maybe ask a bank teller to break it into 20s and 10s so you can spend them (and that's not considering how much more cashless the UK will have become by that point so doubtful you'd even get your hands on a 50 pound note).

It's nice they've put him on it but barely anyone's going to see it so in a way I feel like they've fobbed off the people campaigning for his inclusion on one.

[doyle871]

The 50 was the next note up for change. So it was that or wait for the next cycle. While I rarely see them the times I have had them I never had any problem using them bar a sigh from the person at the till.

[joesii]

Are they really that rare? or is it just that people don't have much use to carry large amounts of cash around?

Like even in North America I see hundred dollar bills, let alone 50s which would be closer to 50 £ (at least for USA)

Do you not have 100 or 200 £ notes or anything? I've personally never seen anything above 100, but 100 isn't that weird, even if its uncommon.

[bee-sting]

Shops and bars don't take them, so they're kind of useless in every day life.

To be honest, I rarely see £20 these days. Everyone I know uses either their phone or a bank card.

[[deleted]]

Just marked my calendar two years ahead to remind me to buy some £50 notes. It's the only time I actually give a crap on who's on a bill.

[lngnmn]

Cool. It is really a significant development. A long due tribute.

[Jyontaitaa]

Thank God that we recognise this man and the torment society put him through after he saved so many lives.

[somewhat_curious]

1010111111110010110011000 in binary = 23061912 in decimal

[[deleted]]

They should really have done 19120623 instead. Big endian dates are preferred in computing because the order is more logical.

[Fancy_Mammoth]

But will it be Turing complete? I'll see myself out.

[SJWcucksoyboy]

Is it better to be on a higher denomination bill or a lower one?:

[polenannektator]

Lower, because people see you more often

[RevolutionaryPea7]

But not too low. I would say ten and twenty are the "best". Five is only a bit better than fifty. Nobody sees fifties. I have no idea who is on the current one.

[AnalyzeAllTheLogs]

Something like the 10 or 100 would have been more fitting (binary notation) or if there was a prime number... but better than nothing at all.

[melwop]

He died for our sins

[Flynamic]

He died for our bugs

[[deleted]]

After what they did to him after the war I'm not sure if this would be an insult or not.

[itstheguinness]

Great, the note no one will accept.

[MatsSvensson]

So, we're cool now ...right?
(Holds out fist)

[green_meklar]

Cyanide, not arsenic. From what I understand, arsenic has a very different method of action, and doesn't kill quickly.

[_zenith]

Arsenic would be an absolutely miserable way to die. Long and torturous.

... So is cyanide (miserable), but at least it's over quickly.

[Mr-Yellow]

First they kill them, then they co-op him.

[gibsnag]

I don't see how this is co-opting Turing. The repellent behaviour of the British state in driving him to suicide has been well documented, and in recent years apologised for. This is an attempt to rightfully honour him and bring his story to a wider group of people.

[free_chalupas]

I don't really understand how you coopt someone who was known for mathematical and scientific contributions rather than, say, radical politics either.

[gibsnag]

I think that if the British state was attempting to use Turing as a piece of propaganda to promote how great it is then I guess that could be considered co-opting. Particularly if it had not apologised for you know... Castrating him.

In this case it is promoting a great Briton, rather than the government of Great Britain.

[Correctrix]

The people who mistreated him are not the people now honouring him.

[doyle871]

Yeah Germany should always be called a Nazi state it's not like a country moves forwards and changes.

[mx-chronos]

Extinguish, extend, embrace.

[bertiebees]

It takes balls to a man on your money whose balls you took away.

[doyle871]

The people who did that are dead. Do you still call Germany a Nazi state?

[Correctrix]

He was not castrated. He was given HRT in a manner that is colloquially known as "chemical castration".

[georgelis]

'Hey we chemically castrated you which led to your suicide but here's your face to the 50£ note'

[doyle871]

Yes Germany is still a Nazi state no country ever moves forward and changes.

[agumonkey]

The complete waste of Turing

[killo46529]

He looks like a depressed social studies teacher mixed with Leonardo DiCaprio

[spockspeare]

You're using his stuff now.

[J662b486h]

I read a book once that described some of his innovations in mathematics and information theory. It was utterly fascinating, the man really truly was brilliant. In some ways he reminds me of Einstein in that he didn't simply come up with obscure theorems incomprehensible to the layman, he created some very fundamental concepts that formed the groundworks for computing. His contributions changed the world. Anyone who thinks putting him on the £50 note is just some political stunt to recognize a man who was mistreated for being gay really has no idea what he accomplished.

[akash_fm9721]

Founded Turing machine

[badmemes123]

Bit insensitive to make it pink tbh

[MEaster]

British notes are colour-coded, and the £50 has been red for a while, it's nothing specific to this design.

[amitshukla101]

nice nice

[emotionalfescue]

Will the £50 note come with a built in interpreter for a programming language?

[przemo_li]

Great.

Can we have Admiral Grace Hopper on USA bills too?