We were honoured to host the Bank of England for the reveal of the scientific character who would appear on the new £50 note.
As one of those who lobbied for Alan Turing to be given a posthumous pardon for the ‘crime’ of being a homosexual, I am delighted that the Bank of England has announced that he will soon be given pride of place on the new £50 note.
We now know the next £50 note will be adorned by the mathematician, computer scientist, and cryptanalyst Alan Turing but there were many leading contenders for the honour, such as Stephen Hawking, Srinivasa Ramanujan and Dorothy Hodgkin.
Mathematician and writer Jonathan Swinton takes a look at Alan Turing’s personal connections to our collection.