Complex Numbers

Dead Presidents

I like money.

By this, I don't mean that I want to fill my Olympic-sized swimming pool with bills of various denominations and go swimming in it - though, to be fair, I do - but I think the whole concept of money is fascinating.

So I was intrigued by this article:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46343965

New £50 note scientist nominations released

The Bank of England has released a list of scientists who have been nominated to feature on the new £50 note.

On the list are computing pioneers Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace, telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell and astronomer Patrick Moore.

See, this is one area where I think the UK is right and the US is not as right. Oh, sure, some of their bills have the Queen on them, and that's fine, but they also take the opportunity to honor people who actually contribute to society.

In the early years of the US, we couldn't exactly put the King on our currency, because as a new country we had to flaunt our independence and all that rot. But, being a new country, we didn't have a lot of other role models. Historically, coins and, later, bills featured kings, emperors, and other figures we deliberately did away with. So they used, primarily, personifications of the ideals upon which our country was (supposedly) founded; notably, Lady Liberty.

Later, we apparently decided that leaders were worthy of having their portraits on currency after all, so we started putting dead people on them (this was a break from the common practice of putting the current king, emperor, or whatever on the money). Huh... I wonder if that's the origin of the word currency, but probably not and I can't be arsed to look it up. More likely it's from the kind of current you get in a river.

Anyway, so here in 2018 we have the following on our bills:

$1 George Washington, first President, traitor to the Crown, crappy general, slaveholder, rich bastard.
$2 Thomas Jefferson, third President, slaveboner, hypocrite (did design a pretty nice-looking university though).
$5 Abraham Lincoln, some number President, can't think of anything bad to say about him.
$10 Alexander Hamilton, not even a President, couldn't win a duel to save his life, inspiration for the most hipster play in history.

Okay, yes, I'm just sore because I was never cool enough to score tickets, shut up

$20 Andrew Jackson, some number President, should have been named Andrew Jackass, racist dickwad.
$50 Ulysses S. Grant, has distinction of having the most badass name of any President ever, otherwise unremarkable.
$100 Benjamin Franklin, not a President. Inventor, philosopher, philanthropist, economist, statesman.

Of those, the only one of those even remotely qualifying as a scientist was Ben Franklin. Objectively also the most awesome of the bunch. I mean, come on, dude was chill as fuck and flew kites before kites were cool, so I guess technically he was a hipster, too. Best role model of all the Founders, and yes, I say this knowing full well what he got up to in France. If every American aspired to be Ben Franklin instead of that douchebucket Andrew Jackson, we'd all be better off as a country.

So yeah, I think it's time we put our own damn scientists on the money instead of dead presidents. We've had a few good ones, like... um... okay, now I'm racking my brains trying to come up with American scientists who were actually born in and lived their lives in the US. Um... Richard Feynman? George Washington Carver? I could google it, I suppose, but I'm lazy. Einstein comes to mind, but I'm thinking it'd have to be someone born in the US, like with presidents. That leaves out Tesla, too. Dammit, most of our scientists were immigrants. I suppose you could argue that they all were, unless you can think of a Native American scientist.

Okay, England, you win the scientist war. We still have better musi- DAMMIT.

Maybe we should just acknowledge reality and put capitalists on money. Rockefeller, Carnegie, that lot. That's one category of people we're good at producing, and besides, their business was money.

Just let's keep Ben Franklin, because he was awesome.