BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated

Subject: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: DMcG
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 12:31 PM

The Bank of England is choosing a character for the £50 note. It has to be a dead scientist.

I nominated Hertha Ayrton, which has made the very long list.

Who would you pick?

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 12:34 PM

Maxwell, Dirac and Newton all enjoying a drink together.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Stanron
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 12:48 PM

Ada Lovelace?

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 02:53 PM

The parachute has deployed on its way to Mar's surface and touchdown will happen on Earth right Now...*

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 02:55 PM

Now we must wait for the probe to say its ready to penetrate Mars.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 03:08 PM

Earth time landing on Mars was 2:53 EST

nothing big until dinnertime 5PM when the probe's date with Mars really begins.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Jos
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 03:38 PM

So are you suggesting Colin Pillinger for the £50 note?

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 04:30 PM

Srinivasa Ramanujan.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Jos
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 04:40 PM

I know the candidates have to be dead, but do they have to be British?

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: DMcG
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 04:54 PM

Apparently not. Here are the restrictions from the Bank of England:

You can nominate as many people as you like. But anyone who appears on the new £50 note must:

* have contributed to the field of science
* be real – so no fictional characters please
* not be alive - Her Majesty the Queen is the only exception
* have shaped thought, innovation, leadership or values in the UK
* inspire people, not divide them 

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 06:58 PM

Jack, you know he had trouble showing his work to the dweebs at Oxford.
He reminds me of Tesla.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Nov 18 - 07:57 PM

Stephen Hawkin.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 03:05 AM

Ramanujan had very little problem getting through to the one person who mattered to him, G.H.Hardy. He didn't have to fight the Home Office as he would have to today.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 03:36 AM

Stephen Hawkin.
DMcG, I love the Bank of England's stipulation that the nominee must be a real person and not a fictional character.
I would have liked Dumbledore, the Wizard of Oz (was he Australian by any chance?!) or perhaps Dr Who.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: DMcG
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 03:46 AM

Dr Who certainly opens up the opportunity to enhance security through multiple holographic images.

I see Mrs Thatcher is nominated. I am not sure she meets the "not devisive" criteria.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 03:52 AM

Didn't she do something incredibly trivial with ice-cream? Not exactly a ground-breaking scientist. And imagine the graffiti on the £50 notes, they'd be so defaced most would have to be recalled.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 04:09 AM

Ooops! I missed the final 'g' off my nominee's name.
It's Stephen Hawking.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 04:59 AM

Thatcher the milk snatcher didn't do anything clever with ice cream. Soft ice cream was already sold in the US before her Anglicising of it.

And she was a technologist, not a scientist.

As a programmer, Ada Lovelace tops my choices. And put her name in some binary sequence too.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Jos
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 05:24 AM

I hate soft ice cream - for me, ice cream needs some texture.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 07:11 AM

Yep, "HawkinG." That one got past me too! :-(

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 09:00 AM

Jos, I like ANY texture of ice cream. But it has to be Cornish (eg Kelly's) or Ronaldo's from their little kiosk in Sheringham.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Jos
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 09:17 AM

The ice cream that is scooped out of a tub or container is usually OK. What I can't abide is that 'Whippy' stuff that's squirted out of a tube.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 09:43 AM

Kelly's is only OK if you really must eat ice cream beyond the confines of Italy. Once you've tasted the delights of the true gelateria, the British article seems somewhat amateurish.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 11:57 AM

I reckon Walls ice cream is dire.

I think (though not entirely sure) that Ronaldo's ice cream of many flavours (sold in 'Ellie's' in Sheringham) has something to do with the Parravani family, and is based on an Italian gelato recipe.

I read online that bookies are now giving Stephen Hawking odds of 7:2, so it could be that he's favourite.
If one of the criteria is that the choice 'shouldn't be divisive', then Mrs Thatcher will be ruled out straight away.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 12:00 PM

...and nobody would bother with Italian ice cream if they could get Czech or New Zealand stuff.

So if we need to nominate a scientist who worked in the UK and would have known what good ice cream was: Ernest Rutherford. Who Theresa May would also have deported.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: DMcG
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 01:39 PM

I was brought up on Middlesbrough where the Rea family from Italy were pretty much the sole suppliers - Chris Rea is part of the family. I was young and foolish at the time, so was taken with the soft ice cream when it appeared, and so contributed to the loss of the Italian article from the town.

We all have something to regret!

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: G-Force
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 01:56 PM

I suppose Charles Wheatstone is a bit divisive.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 02:20 PM

William Herschel was a truly excellent man, not only a great scientist but a composer of lovely music in the classical style. If you ever go to Bath you should go to his house in New King Street, now a little museum, where you can stand in the back garden on the very spot where he discovered Uranus in 1781. He did lots of other very fine astronomy too.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Nov 18 - 02:59 PM

I wonder why they couldn't put all these famous scientists on £50 notes, limited editions for each one. Perhaps it would make forgery too easy. And it would all start to get a bit like that Pokemon palaver.
("I've got four of Stephen Hawking. Anyone want to swap for a Herschel, a Thatcher, a Newton and a Mendel?")

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: BobL
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 05:03 AM

Well, banknotes are printed in sheets of about a dozen so it should be technically possible for each note in the sheet to feature a different subject. I'd guess that the same anti-forgery tricks could be applied to each design. A possible forgery trap is that the letters of the serial number would have to correspond to the portrait.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Senoufou
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 05:50 AM

Ha Bob! Well that seems like a good idea then. Make it more diverse and interesting.
I don't think I've ever seen a fifty pound note. We even avoid twenty pound notes, as the village shops don't like giving change out of a big note just for a newspaper. I expect too they don't entirely trust large denominations.
Having said that, I'd quite like about a hundred twenty pound notes. I expect I could manage to spend them somehow or other. :)

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Nov 18 - 12:24 PM

In Europe they think nothing of 50 euro notes, and if you draw money from a cash machine in Spain or Italy, say 200€, you'll invariably get three fifties in the mix. Yet we don't like those damned fifties here. I've only ever had one, from a Barclays cash machine in Padstow that had run out of smaller denominations. There was a near-insurrection in the street as more and more customers received these unwelcome items!

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: BobL
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 03:40 AM

Those of a certain age may care to recall how it used to be. I haven't looked up the official figures for inflation but going by the price of a pint since I started drinking, a pound today is worth about sixpence in 1960. In those days we had notes for 10/- (£20 in today's money), £1 (£40) and £5 (£200). Perhaps we need a £5 coin to take the place of the old half-crown.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 04:15 AM

In the fifties I used to spend 6d (two-and-a-half p) at the corner newsagent's every week. I bought the Dandy(2d) the Beano(2d) and a very long liquorice skipping rope(2d). I'd start at one end of the liquorice and chew my way along it while reading the comics. An hour or more of bliss.
My newspaper now is 70p (about fifteen shillings!!)

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 04:30 AM

My first pint cost me 1s/11d. I was wearing my school uniform when I bought it.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 04:42 AM

Charles Wheatstone divisive?, he is more likely to bridge a gap

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Nigel Paterson
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 05:44 AM

My bank issues £50.00 notes only on request. If withdrawing from an ATM, 50s are never used. I'm told they are the most forged notes in the UK. Shops hate them & often refuse them. I applaud the decision to choose a female scientist for the new issue, but the sad fact is, whoever graces the new £50.00 note will rarely be seen!

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Jos
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 06:28 AM

A lady I used to know in the 1980s, when she was over 90, told me she started work with her father in the fields when she was a child and earned 3d (3 old pence - a quarter of a shilling [5p]) a week. She gave her mother 1d, and saved a farthing (a quarter of an old penny), which left her a farthing a day to spend on sweets.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 08:04 AM

"My first pint cost me 1s/11d. I was wearing my school uniform when I bought it."

1s/10d (c. 9p) for mine, Steve. I did change out of school uniform before going to the pub though! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 08:09 AM

They should make it Tim Berners-Lee, and to go with it, every note should be assigned its own travel blog with a unique URL and password. So every time you spent you could say where and what for.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 29 Nov 18 - 08:34 AM

I would like see to Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace together on the note.
or Babbage, Herschel and Peacock

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 05:56 AM

They should make it Tim Berners-Lee, and to go with it, every note should be assigned its own travel blog with a unique URL and password. So every time you spent you could say where and what for.
He's excluded on the grounds given earlier by DMcG:

You can nominate as many people as you like. But anyone who appears on the new £50 note must:
* have contributed to the field of science
* be real – so no fictional characters please
* not be alive - Her Majesty the Queen is the only exception
* have shaped thought, innovation, leadership or values in the UK
* inspire people, not divide them

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Senoufou
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 06:04 AM

With regard to Backwoodsman and Steve buying a pint in a pub while still at school, wasn't that illegal 'back then'?
I have a vision of the younger 'Krankie' or Norman Wisdom, dressed in school uniform but clearly much older, going up to the bar and ordering a pint of bitter!

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 06:12 AM

Definitely illegal. It was at lunchtime in my case. It was in 1968 so don't tell a constable on me, please.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Senoufou
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 06:18 AM

You naughty thing Steve. :)

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 11:02 AM

Conversely, I'm one of the few people to have taken LSD before it was made illegal.

How about Albert Hoffman, the guy who invented it? He's dead and his invention certainly shaped values in the UK. It would help if his banknote was printed on something as absorbent as 1960s blotting paper. Great potential for security coding there.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 12:49 PM

Ah but Hoffmann was Swiss. Can't go having foreigners on British Money.

Nice letter from someone in today's Guardian supporting the idea of Margaret Thatcher on the note, but only on condition that a portrait by Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell was used. (For example)

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: EBarnacle
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 10:28 PM

If you think of how much work is based on their thinking, Newton leads the pack--you know, calculus.
Lovelace and/or Babbage for widespread public application.
Turing for consideration of consciousness.
Hawking for making people think.

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Stanron
Date: 30 Nov 18 - 11:24 PM

I am very much in favour of Lovelace and Babbage because they had their ideas so far ahead of the current technology. And what those ideas lead to utterly changed our world. Babbage invented computing before electronics was much more than experiments in static electricity. Ada wrote her 'notes' based on the merest hint of what a computer might be. They were both prophetic visionaries, and I now enjoy the fruits of their genious as I type this. Salute!

Subject: RE: BS: GBP 50 Note: Scientists nominated
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 01 Dec 18 - 02:25 PM

Yes, "Newton leads the pack" but he's already been featured on the £1 note.