Computer pioneer, Charles Babbage, celebrated on an Innovation in Science 50p…

Charles Babbage was an English mathematician and inventor who originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. He is even considered by some the ‘father of the computer’!

In 2021, the year marking 150 years since his passing, The Royal Mint issued a UK 50p as part of their Innovation in Science series.

2021 UK Charles Babbage 50p

The reverse of the Charles Babbage 50p was created by Nigel Tudman and Jas Bhamra, and features a design honouring Babbage’s legacy, linking his machinery to the digital age. They used a combination of traditional minting skills and modern technology to create the striking design.

The Pioneer of Computing

Boasting an impressive career in calculus, astronomy, and arithmetics , Charles Babbage held the title of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University.

The 1820s saw Babbage’s development of his ‘Difference Engine’, which was a machine that could perform mathematical calculations. Initially constructed as a six-wheeled model, it was later developed into a bigger, better, and more complex machine – Difference Engine 2.

However, his fame as a computer pioneer largely came from his invention, the Analytical Engine. It could perform any arithmetical calculation using punched cards, as well as a memory unit to store numbers – the fundamental components of today’s computers.

Babbage’s ideas were well ahead of their time, making him a perfect addition to The Royal Mint’s Innovation in Science series.

The Innovation in Science Series

This exciting series kick-started back in 2019 with the issue of the Stephen Hawking 50p.

2019 Stephen Hawking 50p

In 2019, less than a year since his death, The Royal Mint released a Stephen Hawking 50p coin, honouring his works as one of the most influential physicists of the modern age.

He became the very first person to be celebrated in The Royal Mint’s Innovators in Science series and only the third person to be commemorated on a coin within a year of their death (the others being Winston Churchill and the Queen Mother!)

The reverse of the coin, designed by Edwina Ellis, features a stylised black hole and the inscription ‘Stephen Hawking’ . It also shows the Bekenstein-Hawking formula, which describes the thermodynamic entropy of a black hole!

2020 Rosalind Franklin 50p

In the year that would have marked her 100th birthday, The Royal Mint released a 50p celebrating the life and crucial work of Rosalind Franklin, the first female scientist to be commemorated on a UK coin.

David Knapton’s striking design of this coin, features a depiction of Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray, ‘Photograph 51’, which revealed the helical structure of DNA, in her laboratory at King’s College, London.

One of Britain’s greatest scientists, Franklin made a crucial finding to the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA.

2021 John Logie Baird 50p

It’s hard to imagine life without television but back in the early 1920s, it was a complete unknown.

That was until John Logie Baird successfully produced televised objects in outline in 1924, transmitted recognisable human faces in 1925, and demonstrated the televising of moving objects in 1926.

Issued in 2021, to celebrate the life and works of the ‘Father of Television’, the design of this 50p coin features key milestones from Baird’s life, presented between the lines of transmission radiating from the centre of the coin.

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Do you have any of the Innovation in Science coins in your collection? Let us know in the comments!