LONDON (AP) – The rainbow flag fluttered proudly on Thursday above the Bank of England, in the heart of London’s financial district, to commemorate World War II cracker Alan Turing, the new face of the 50 pound note. of Great Britain.
The design of the ballot was revealed before it was formally issued to the public on June 23, Turing’s birthday. The £ 50 bill is the most valuable denomination in circulation, but it is seldom used during daily transactions, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, as digital payments have increasingly replaced the use of money.
The new banknote, which has high-level security features and is made of a polymer of greater durability, completes the readjustment of the bank’s paper coins in recent years. Turing’s image joins that of Winston Churchill on the five pound note, novelist Jane Austen on the 10 pound note and artist JMW Turner on the 20 pound note.
Turing was chosen as the new face of the 50 pound note in 2019, after a public nomination process that received about 250,000 votes, partly in recognition of the discrimination he faced as a gay man after the war.
Among his many accomplishments, Turing is most famous for the key role he played in breaking the Enigma code of Nazi Germany during World War II. The code was considered unbreakable, as the cipher changed continuously. Historians say that breaking the code may have helped shorten the war by at least two years, potentially saving millions of lives.
“There is something about a nation’s character in its money and we are right to consider and celebrate people on our bank notes,” said Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey.
“Turing is best known for his coding work at Bletchley Park, which helped to end World War II. However, in addition, he was an important mathematician, developmental biologist and a pioneer in the field of computer science. He was also gay and so he was treated terribly. “
During World War II, Turing worked at Bletchley Park’s secret decoding center, where he helped break Enigma by creating the “Turing bomb”, a precursor to modern computers. He also developed the “Turing test” to measure artificial intelligence.
After the war, he was prosecuted for his relationship with a man in Manchester and had the choice between prison and parole on condition that he underwent treatment with female hormones, which at the time was used as a form of chemical castration.
His conviction led to the removal of his security clearance and meant that he was no longer able to work for the Government’s Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). He died at the age of 41 in 1954 after eating an apple mixed with cyanide.
Turing received a posthumous apology from the British government in 2009 and a royal pardon in 2013. Four years later, Turing’s law, which pardoned gay men with previous convictions, was passed.
Actor and author Stephen Fry said Turing’s latest celebration marks another step in the nation’s long-awaited recognition of “this great man”, whose “talents vary everywhere”.
In a YouTube video posted by the bank, Fry exposed the levels of discrimination and “barbaric punishments” that gays faced in the years after World War II.
“Alan Turing was among the thousands of men harassed and detained by the authorities,” he said. “Not only because of the hostile attitude towards sexuality, but also under the prejudiced belief that there was a connection between homosexuality and communism.
In the past decade, Turing’s life has become known to a much wider audience, especially after the 2014 film “The Imitation Game”, which saw Benedict Cumberbatch play Turing’s role.
As part of the design of the new banknote – which includes a metallic hologram that changes between the words “Fifty ‘and” Pounds “when the banknote is tilted and the image of a microchip – the bank collaborated with the UK intelligence and security agency GCHQ to create the Turing Challenge, a set of 12 puzzles
GCHQ said the full challenge could take seven hours for an experienced puzzle to complete and may even have left Turing “scratching his head, although we highly doubt it”.
Turing’s great-nephew, James Turing, who runs the Turing Trust who refurbishes UK computers for use in African schools, told BBC radio that the puzzle is “a wonderful recognition and somewhat reminiscent of the famous crossword puzzle they used to recruit at Bletchley Park at that time.”