Alan Turing, widely regarded as a pioneer in computing and artificial intelligence, which is why there’s a “Turing Test” benchmark for AI, is being honored by The Bank of England which has announced that the World War Two code-cracker will be featured on the new £50 note. Turing has also made significant contributions to mathematics.
Turing’s achievements have been honored long after his death. They went largely unrecognized during his lifetime because he was gay and that was illegal at the time. Hollywood chronicled his life story in the 2014 film The Imitation Game. Turing’s most popular work is perhaps his success in cracking the Enigma code which provided the Allied forces with valuable intelligence during the war.
The Bank of England has chosen to honor Turing after selecting him from a shortlist of nearly 1,000 scientists. They had been shortlisted after 227,299 nominations were sent in by the general public.
“Alan Turing was an outstanding mathematician whose work has had an enormous impact on how we live today,” said the bank’s governor Mark Carney, adding that “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.” This new note, which finally switches the £50 bill from paper to polymer, will enter circulation by the end of 2021.
Filed in .. Source: bbc