Britain’s £50 Note Will Honor Computing Pioneer Alan Turing | Business - The New York Times

During his lifetime, the mathematician and computer pioneer’s reputation was overshadowed by a conviction under Britain’s Victorian laws against homosexuality, and his war work remained a secret until decades later, inform Amie Tsang, general assignment business reporter based in London.

Alan Turing will be the face of Britain’s new 50-pound note, the Bank of England announced on Monday.
Photo: Bank of England

Alan Turing, the computing pioneer who became one of the most influential code breakers of World War II, has been chosen by the Bank of England to be the new face of its 50-pound note.

The decision to put Mr. Turing on the highest-denomination English bank note, worth about $62, adds to growing public recognition of his achievements. His reputation during his lifetime was overshadowed by a conviction under Britain’s Victorian laws against homosexuality, and his war work remained a secret until decades later.

“Alan Turing was an outstanding mathematician whose work has had an enormous impact on how we live today,” Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said in a statement. “As the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, as well as a war hero, Alan Turing’s contributions were far-ranging and path breaking.”...

Mr. Turing’s work provided the theoretical basis for modern computers, and for ideas of artificial intelligence. His work on code-breaking machines during World War II also drove forward the development of computing, and is regarded as having significantly affected the course of the war.

Mr. Turing died in 1954, two years after being convicted under Victorian laws against homosexuality and forced to endure chemical castration. The British government apologized for his treatment in 2009, and Queen Elizabeth granted him a royal pardon in 2013. 

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Source: The New York Times