暗号解読者チューリングの新ポンド紙幣お披露目　６月から流通

【ロンドンＡＦＰ＝時事】英中央銀行のイングランド銀行は25日、第2次世界大戦中の暗号解読者で、同性愛者だったアラン・チューリングの肖像が描かれた新50ポンド紙幣を公開した。多様性をたたえるデザインだとしている。（写真は英数学者アラン・チューリングの肖像をあしらった新50ポンド紙幣。イングランド銀行提供）
　耐久性が高く偽造しにくいこのポリマー（プラスチック）紙幣は、チューリングの誕生日の６月２３日から流通が開始される。
　数学者だったチューリングは、現代のコンピューター科学の父と呼ばれる。１９４１年、ナチス・ドイツの暗号機「エニグマ」の解読チームを率いた。
　イングランド銀行のアンドルー・ベーリー総裁は、「同性愛者でもあり、そのせいで苛酷な扱いを受けた」チューリングを新紙幣に採用することで「その功績と、チューリングが象徴する価値観をたたえる」と説明した。
　ケンブリッジ大学卒のチューリングは、機械が人間と同じように思考できるかを判断する際に必要となる基準に注目した「チューリングテスト」を開発。人工知能（ＡＩ）の礎を築いた。
　しかしチューリングは１９５２年、１９歳の男性との重大わいせつ行為で有罪となり、収監を免れる代わりに化学的去勢を受けた。その２年後、４２歳の誕生日を迎える直前に自殺した。
　現行の５０ポンド紙幣には、産業革命時代の技術者ジェームズ・ワットと、ワットの後援者マシュー・ボールトンの肖像が描かれている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/03/31-14:15）

The Bank of England on Thursday unveiled a new design for Britain's top-value banknote featuring gay World War II code-breaker Alan Turing, celebrating diversity even as cash falls out of favour.
The more durable and forgery-secure ��50 polymer note (worth about $70 or 60 euros) will enter circulation on June 23, Turing's birthday, the UK's central bank said.
Turing was a mathematician and is considered the father of modern computing. He spearheaded a team at Britain's Bletchley Park that cracked the Nazis' Enigma code in 1941.
He was also gay, and was treated appallingly as a result, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey said in a statement.
By placing him on our new polymer ��50 banknote, we are celebrating his achievements, and the values he symbolises.
The Cambridge University educated mathematician also developed the Turing test, which looks at what criteria are needed to judge whether a machine can think like a human -- the foundation for artificial intelligence.
But he was prosecuted in 1952 for gross indecency and was forced to undergo chemical castration as an alternative to jail. He killed himself two years later, shortly before his 42nd birthday.
In 1967, Britain decriminalised homosexuality between men aged over 21.
Turing's life story was turned into a 2014 movie called The Imitation Game, starring Oscar-nominated British actor Benedict Cumberbatch.
Turing was given a posthumous pardon in 2013, and his name also lives on in a new student exchange programme launched by the government following Britain's departure from the European Union.
The new ��50 note will replace a paper bill that bears Industrial Revolution engineer James Watt and his financial backer, Matthew Boulton.
Britain's other banknotes feature wartime prime minister Winston Churchill (��5), novelist Jane Austen (��10) and the artist JMW Turner (��20). They are all polymer, which lasts longer than paper and is harder to forge.
However, cash is in long-term decline and the higher-value notes are little-used for daily payments, except anecdotally by drug dealers and other criminals.
In 2017, debit cards overtook cash as Britain's most frequently used payment method, according to the Bank of England, and the trend has accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic with customers preferring contactless cards.
But the central bank, while conceding that bitcoin and other virtual currencies are also making inroads, insists that cash will remain a key part of the economy for years to come.