British bank places computer pioneer Alan Turing on a £50 bill

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by Hilbert Hagedoorn, Jul 16, 2019.

  1. Hilbert Hagedoorn

    Hilbert Hagedoorn Don Vito Corleone Staff Member

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    XP-200, Fox2232 and big ROBOT bill like this.
  2. sverek

    sverek Guest

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    I highly recommend to watch "The Imitation Game" movie. It follows the biography of Turing.
    Glad to see old geeks being recognized by society.

    Now we need USA to put Dennis Ritchie on their bills.
     
  3. mentor07825

    mentor07825 Member Guru

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    "Turing was homosexual and was convicted in 1952 of "very indecent behavior". Homosexuality was forbidden back then. He could not deal with that and two years later he died of cyanide poisoning. Research has shown that it was suicide. In 2009 the British government posthumously apologized."

    He couldn't just handle that, he was chemically castrated as punishment, which is what really did it for him in terms of coping. Not the only one for being punished for "Indecent Behavior" either. One of the reasons why the UK government have not apologised for the rest is because some of them are still alive. If they admit fault then that opens up the possibility of litigation.

    Far cheaper to do it posthumously.
     
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  4. gopher04

    gopher04 Master Guru

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    Thats ironic really, we are getting a new plastic £50 note like the rest of them that stays bent..:D:p
     

  5. buhehe

    buhehe Master Guru

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    I have never seen £50 notes in years of living in London... and if you try to use one (I had a couple) many places simply refuse them.
    The irony...
     
  6. Clawedge

    Clawedge Guest

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    Well deserved
     
  7. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    isn't it against british law to refuse legal tender?
     
  8. alanm

    alanm Ancient Guru

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    Saw it, good movie.His deciphering methods were so effective that the Brits could not act on them too much so as not to tip off the Germans their codes were cracked. Lives were lost as a deliberate strategy to that end.
     
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  9. Irenicus

    Irenicus Master Guru

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    It pays to know your rights. Legal tender CANNOT be refused, by law.
     
  10. Dribble

    Dribble Master Guru

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    History of code breaking in Bletchley Park is fascinating - and it wasn't just Turing, he's become a figurehead but there was a large team that did this. They broke not just enigma (which just sent short messages) but the Lorenz cipher, which was much more important. Where as enigma would be used for things like refuelling u-boats (so the allies knew where they'd come up and hence could bomb them), Lorenz sent much longer high command messages - e.g. the full plan for battle sent directly by Hitler.

    Then there's all the double agents the Brits had feeding false intel. Throughout the whole war the German's never believed their ciphers and agents had been broken. In fact even the British and American army commanders had trouble believing how thoroughly the British had broken German intelligence and famously refused to listen when they were told exactly what the German's were going to do.

    They also made the first programmable computer there - a BT engineer called Tommy Flowers made it. But post war it was all top secret and no one talked about it till many many years later (that BT engineer - the guy who made the first computer - actually went back to working for BT post war).

    Lots of stories and well worth a visit to Bletchley Park if you are ever in the area (it's a museum now).
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2019
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  11. jbmcmillan

    jbmcmillan Guest

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    Probably it is same as Canada but if they refuse are you going to call a cop? They sometimes refuse 100 dollar bills around here not too often but it happens.
     
  12. Devid

    Devid Master Guru

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    England: DXR ON :D
     
  13. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    This I can confirm. Don't even try to buy a coffee with anything more than a 20, they already cringe with 50s. Reminds me I still have to go to the bank and deliberately tell them what notes I want for my travels in September. Too bad the old 5s aren't around anymore... I'll probably not see a Spock bill this time.
    Here in Austria there's some rule saying it's dependant on the price of whatever you buy... not every company has to take a 100€ bill to buy a pack of chewing gum, iirc.


    But: Yes, put scientists onto bills! 100% support on my side.


    In Austria, before the € was introduced, we had the following people on our bills:

    20 - Daffinger: painter and sculptor
    50 - Sigmund Freud: famous neurologist and phsychoanalyst
    100 - von Bawerk: economist
    500 - Otto Wagner: famous architect and urban planer; later Ms. Mayreder: female rights activist
    1000 - Erwin Schrödinger: physicist, without cat; later Landsteiner, biologist and doctor who discovered blood groups
    5000 - Mozart.

    Now it's boring bridges. 'nough said.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2019
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  14. Passus

    Passus Ancient Guru

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    Well here in the UK people wont accept £50 notes as they dont have enough change

    Its rare i see 1 to be honest,, would have been better if they put him on the new 20s coming next year
     
  15. b101uk

    b101uk Guest

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    You can only use the legal tender argument in the UK where a debt exists prior to payment, I.e. the person you owe the debt to cannot refuse legal tender to settle the debt, a good example of this would be a fuel station, where you fill you car etc prior to payment or restaurant where you eat the food before payment, thus the debt exists before payment.

    on the other hand shops have every right to refuse sale to ANY person, and on that basis there is no pre-existing debt, given the goods haven't been legally transferred to yourself via the mechanism of sale nor has "debt" been created per se as the goods can be simply given back.
     
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  16. anticupidon

    anticupidon Ancient Guru

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    Good trend having famous scientists or inventors on currency.
     
  17. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag Ancient Guru

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    This is a nice step in the right direction. I'm not exactly sure why of everyone they could've chosen, they picked Turing (there are other British people arguably more famous than him), but, I'm glad they did. He deserves the recognition.

    In some cases, I wonder if it might be like the $2 bill or $0.50 coin in the US: they are legal tender, but they're rare enough that some shopkeepers or cashiers don't recognize them. Since a lot of those older currencies have little to no anti-counterfeit measures, I wonder if there is actually an exception to deny them.
     
  18. Solfaur

    Solfaur Ancient Guru

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    Nice one. His story is quite fascinating to say the least. It's such a shame how he ended up, especially considering his contribution to the war effort. But then again, those were different times, if he were born even 1-2 centuries earlier he would have had an even crueler fate.
     
  19. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    I've heard of cases where the police won't do a thing if an establishment refuses the legal tender.
     
  20. JOHN30011887

    JOHN30011887 Master Guru

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    Haven't used notes or coins in many years now, i just use contactless and paypal
     

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