New £50 note: Which British scientists are most likely to appear on the currency?

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Stephen Hawking open image in gallery Many people’s favourite to win will undoubtedly be the recently deceased Hawking, a true scientific superstar whose contributions to science extended far beyond his own discipline. Ada Lovelace open image in gallery Ada Lovelace came up with the first computer program, a century in advance of Alan Turing Another figure seen as an overlooked scientific pioneer from a time when women were not traditionally included in science, Lovelace is often described as the world’s first computer programmer. Dorothy Hodgkin open image in gallery Dorothy Mary Hodgkin, known professionally as Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin or simply Dorothy Hodgkin, was a British biochemist who developed protein crystallography, for which she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 As the only British woman to become a Nobel science laureate, Hodgkin would be another perfect addition to the UK’s currency, and one who many people are perhaps not familiar with. Her nomination was backed by Royal Society president Venki Ramakrishnan, who said: “I would personally pick Dorothy Hodgkin, the only female Briton to have won a science Nobel Prize.” “We can thank Dorothy for revealing the three-dimensional structures of many biologically important molecules such as penicillin, insulin and vitamin B12, as well as inspiring several generations of leading crystallographers.