Alan Turing



On March 25, the Bank of England unveiled a new 50-pound banknote. The note features the pioneering British computer scientist and codebreaker, Alan Turing. Turing is most famous for his role in helping the Allies* win World War II. During the war, he worked at the secret Bletchley Park codebreaking center, where he helped crack Nazi Germany’s notorious Enigma* code.

The Germans used the Enigma code to scramble their communications and keep their plans secret. The code was constantly changed, and thus, was thought impossible to crack.

To decipher the code, Turing created a codebreaking machine, called a bombe, which is considered a precursor to the modern computer. According to historians, cracking the Enigma code may have helped to shorten the war by about two years, saving millions of lives in the process.

On top of his codebreaking work, Turing was also a path-breaking mathematician who laid the foundations for computer science. He developed the famous “Turing Test,” which measures artificial intelligence and determines whether it could think like a human.

The new 50-pound note honors Turing by containing various references to his life and work. On the front of the note, a portrait of Turing is joined by a picture of his Pilot ACE Machine, one of the first electronic digital computers. A table of equations from one of his academic papers can be seen in the foreground in white ink.

There is even a strip of ones and zeros representing Turing’s birthday, June 23, in binary code. The banknote itself is made from polymer* rather than paper in order to make it harder to counterfeit.

As part of the selection process for the new banknote, the Bank of England asked the public to nominate their favorite scientists. Out of nearly 250,000 responses, the bank narrowed down the choices to a list of 12 scientists, including Stephen Hawking, before finally deciding on Turing. The new bank note is set to officially enter circulation on June 23.

Questions:
1. Who is Alan Turing?
2. What is Alan Turing most famous for?
3. Talk about the selection process for the new bank note. When will it officially enter the circulation?
4. Talk about the selection process for the new bank note. When will it officially enter the circulation?
5. How demanding do you think it is to create and change designs for banknotes?

Vocabulary:

1. banknote - a piece of paper money, constituting a central bank's promissory note to pay a stated sum to the bearer on demand.​