WWII Codebreaker Turing Honored on UK's New 50-Pound Note
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:
WWII codebreaker Turing honored on UK's new 50-pound note:
LONDON (AP) - The rainbow flag flew proudly Thursday above the Bank of England in the heart of London's financial district to commemorate World War II codebreaker Alan Turing, the new face of Britain's 50-pound note.
The design of the bank note was unveiled before it is being formally issued to the public on June 23, Turing's birthday. The 50-pound note is the most valuable denomination in circulation but is little used during everyday transactions, especially during the coronavirus pandemic as digital payments increasingly replaced the use of cash.
The new note, which is laden with high-level security features and is made of longer-lasting polymer, completes the bank's rejig of its paper currencies over the past few years. Turing's image joins that of Winston Churchill on the five-pound note, novelist Jane Austen on the 10-pound note and artist J. M. W. Turner on the 20-pound note.
Turing was selected as the new face of the 50-pound note in 2019 following a public nomination process that garnered around 250,000 votes, partly [in] recognition of the discrimination that he faced as a gay man after the war.
Among his many accomplishments, Turing is most famous for the pivotal role he played in breaking Nazi Germany's Enigma code during World War II. The code had been believed to be unbreakable as the cipher changed continuously. Historians say the cracking of the code may have helped shorten the war by at least two years, potentially saving millions of lives.
"There's something of the character of a nation in its money, and we are right to consider and celebrate the people on our bank notes," Bank of England Gov. Andrew Bailey said.
[...] As part of the new note's design - which includes a metallic hologram that changes between the words "Fifty' and "Pounds" when the note is tilted and an image of a microchip - the bank collaborated with U.K. intelligence and security agency GCHQ to create The Turing Challenge, a set of 12 puzzles
GCHQ said the full challenge could take an experienced puzzler seven hours to complete and may have even left Turing "scratching his head, although we very much doubt it."
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