July 15, 2019 - 14:42 AMT
Alan Turing to feature on new £50 note

Alan Turing, the scientist famous for helping to crack the wartime Enigma code and pioneering the modern computer, has been chosen to appear on the Bank of England’s new £50 note, The Guardian reports.

The mathematician was chosen from a list of almost 1,000 scientists in a decision that recognised both his role in fending off the threat of German U-boats in the Battle of Atlantic and the impact of his postwar persecution for homosexuality.

The announcement – made by the Bank’s governor Mark Carney at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester – completes the official rehabilitation of Turing, who played a pivotal role at the Bletchley Park code and cypher centre during the second world war.

While at Bletchley Park, Turing came up with ways to break German ciphers, including improvements to pre-war Polish methods for finding the settings for the German Enigma machines.

Carney said: “Alan Turing was an outstanding mathematician whose work has had an enormous impact on how we live today. As the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, as well as war hero, Alan Turing’s contributions were far ranging and path breaking. Turing is a giant on whose shoulders so many now stand.”

The Bank praised Turing both for his role as a scientist and for the impact he has had on society. Prosecuted for homosexuality in 1952, an inquest concluded his death from cyanide poisoning two years later was suicide.

The Bank said it had received a total of 227,299 nominations, covering 989 eligible characters. These were narrowed down to a shortlist of 12, with Carney making the final choice.