back to article Which scientist should be on the new £50 note? El Reg weighs in – and you should vote, too

This week the Bank of England said it was going to put a famous boffin on a new polymer £50 note, and has decided to ask the public who it should be. There is even an online form where you can put in a nomination – it will be open for the next six weeks. There are only two rules attached: they must be a) a scientist – covering …

Page:

  1. x 7

    How about George Porter?

    https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1967/porter/biographical/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Porter

    Outstanding scientist, Nobel Prize winner, but also he was a nice bloke. Unlike a lot of elite scientists......

  2. mgbrown

    Albert Niemann (chemist)

    Albert Friedrich Emil Niemann. I know he's not British, but his discovery is more associated with £50 notes than anyone else's.

  3. Ian Johnston Silver badge

    Any of 'em except Stephen Hawking, because he was a total bastard, professionally as well as personally.

  4. D@v3

    Bernard Lovell

    Surprised to see only one other mention.

    Gave his name to the telescope which was the largest steerable dish radio telescope in the world when it was built (in 1957), even now it is the third-largest (or 2nd, depending on how you look at it, 1st and 2nd are the same size).

    Lots of work, research and developments.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lovell

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovell_Telescope

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wot no mention of Heinz Wolff !!!

    OK, so he was German refugee, but he was a great explainer... and 'The Great Egg Race'... think of how many people went into science and engineering because of that

  6. Eccella

    Patrick Moore

    Astronomy for the masses, appeared with Morecombe and Wise, made eyebrows fashionable!

  7. Horsefly

    Michael Faraday did so much more

    I'm astonished that the article section didn't mention that Faraday also discovered electromagnetic induction and used it to invent both the mechanically driven AC electric generator and the transformer that are the basis of pretty much the entrire worldwide electricity supply industry!

    That said, my vote is for James Clerk Maxwell because Faraday has already been on the £20 note

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Michael Faraday did so much more

      "I'm astonished that the article section didn't mention..."

      That's why we have a comments section.

      C.

  8. Roger Ramjet

    Carl Friedrich Gauss ?

    I always thought his name should be brought to the fore?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What about Dorothy Hodgkin?

    Awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances." -aka vitamin B12. Dorothy Hodgkin was a woman of great intellect and an immense passion for science, she helped advance the x-ray crystallography technique, which was the key to studying and understanding three-dimensional structures of biochemical compounds.

    She also tutored and remained friends with Margaret Roberts (later Thatcher), but that is entirely incidental.

  10. Mage Silver badge
    Coffee/keyboard

    John Logie Baird

    "John Logie Baird

    Why?

    He basically invented television"

    !

    !

    Not this old chestnut. He DID NOT invent Television. He was successful at raising the profile of it and promoting a dead-end mechanical concept. Electronic TV was outlined in 1905 or 1906. The only difficulty was the camera target. Various people even replaced the receiver disk and later mirror unit on the Baird system with a CRT. He used a near real time developed cine film and scanner eventually when the resolution reached 240 lines. That was later developed for spy satellites for HD and slow transmission.

    By 1935 the RCA electronic system had beaten Farnsworth's (his was a dead-end camera target concept). EMI worked with RCA (historic links via Marconi, HMV and Victor Talking Machine Co,) and developed a decent camera for UK.

    No country in the world continued with Baird way of doing it.

    1. Roger Ramjet

      Re: John Logie Baird

      Carl Friedrich Gauss did the footwork.

      1. Nick Kew
        Coat

        Re: John Logie Baird

        But Gauss was a Kraut. So tellies in Blighty need de-Gaussing.

  11. Stevie

    Bah!

    If we pick the penicillin bloke we can sing the name of Fleming with pride.

    Fleeeeeeming!

  12. Richard Parkin

    Hologram

    No idea if this is possible but all the above and they are in a hologram so who you see varies with the angle. Or hundreds of tiny portraits replacing the background wavy lines etc on the note.

  13. DrD'eath

    I nominate Peter Mitchell

    Genius and maverick, Peter Mitchell. His work was remarkable and revolutionary.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_D._Mitchell

  14. labourer

    wot! no Hedy Lamarr in the foreign section?

    1. jake Silver badge

      Note:

      That's NOT Hedley!

  15. steviebuk Silver badge

    That pole closed quick!

    I was working so didn't get a chance to read.

    Its between

    Rosalind Franklin

    Tommy Flowers

    Alan Turing

    Why can't we have all 3 in stripped images.

    Its difficult to decide between those 3.

  16. Mothballs

    And the winner is...

    Jethro Tull gets my vote. Not only did he invent the Seed Drill, which revolutionised agriculture in the 18th century, but he was also quite good at playing the flute while standing on one leg.

    1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: Jethro Tull

      Some say he was Thick as a Brick*, others say he was Living in the Past.

      *I had the original album, which was in the form of a newspaper with a sleeve for the vinyl record.

  17. beecee

    Ada Lovelace there is no question in my mind.

  18. rmstock

    James Clerk Maxwell

    His two volume set monumental work "A treatise on electricity and magnetism" (c)1873 has remained hidden in some drawer of the Gravitational Department of Berkeley CA (University of California) for decades. The only copy left ? The successful detection of Gravitational waves by Thorne et.al. was rewarded with the 2017 Nobel Prize of Physics. When glancing through the Gravitation bible https://archive.org/details/GravitationMisnerThorneWheeler and comparing the covered content like introducing e.g. Chapter 4 ELECTROMAGNETISM AND DIFFERENTIAL FORMS Box 4.2 ABSTRACTING A 2-FORM FROM THE CONCEPT OF "HONEYCOMB¬ LIKE STRUCTURE," IN 3-SPACE AND IN SPACETIME with that of Maxwell's 1873 work https://archive.org/details/electricandmagne01maxwrich https://archive.org/details/electricandmagne02maxwrich you know that the Berkeley professors were peeking in Maxwell's 1873 book set all of the time. He probably died premature because of his opinion on the instantaneous nature of E, the electric field, which was opposed by Einstein and the Berkeley professors, who imposed a general speed limit of c. Of course the speed of light was first calculated by Maxwell. In 1962 J.D. Jackson published Classical Electrodynamics 1st ed https://archive.org/details/ClassicalElectrodynamics probably the best book on its subject. It seems however that his first edition contained some inconsistencies in Chapter 11 Special Theory of Relativity, that it took only a few year before J.D. Jackson was berglarized to join Berkeley in order to publish his famous 2nd edition, in which Chapter 11 on Special Theory was totally rewritten https://archive.org/details/ClassicalElectrodynamics2nd .

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: James Clerk Maxwell

      OK, that was weird.

  19. JohnGrantNineTiles

    Alan Blumlein

    Invented the 405-line TV system that was actually used, unlike Baird. Many other inventions including stereo audio. Died young, in a plane crash while testing a new radar system during WW2.

  20. Exrugbyman38

    Guglielmo Marconi

    I suggest Guglielmo Marconi as he founded Marconi after inventing long distance radio.

    This nomination is contentious because the Brexiteers would insist on a referendum if the Bank of England proposed such a foreign sounding name on one of our notes (he was featured on a commemorative 50p coin in 2001) See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guglielmo_Marconi

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon