The Associated Press
LONDON–Codebreaker and computing pioneer Alan Turing has been chosen as the face of Britain’s new 50 pound note, the Bank of England announced today.
Governor Mark Carney said Turing, who did ground-breaking work on computers and artificial intelligence, was “a giant on whose shoulders so many now stand.”
During World War II Turing worked at the secret Bletchley Park code-breaking centre, where he helped crack Nazi Germany’s secret codes by creating the “Turing bombe,” a forerunner of modern computers.
He also developed the “Turing Test” to measure artificial intelligence.
After the war he was prosecuted for homosexuality, which was then illegal, and forcibly treated with female hormones. He died at age 41 in 1954 after eating an apple laced with cyanide.
Turing received a posthumous apology from the British government in 2009, and a royal pardon in 2013.
