h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Who, among those still alive or recently dead, do you think merit being commemorated on banknotes in the future?

Gordon Brown. Just as a visible reminder of whose money it really is.

Oliver Reed with his mad drunken grin.

No reason, really.

Gorden the gopher,
Orvel,
Kermit the Frog,
Captain Scarlet,
Thomas the tank,
etc.... they coudl do a series

Dicky D!

The Queen.

Roger Walters

Whisper it quietly but I can imagine Thatcher getting on there at some stage.

George W.

I too, fear that Thatcher might be thus lauded one day. It could be that we'll have business celebrities too, like Richard Branson.

I was thinking more of which modern day scientists, artists & general worthies compare with Newton, Darwin, Elgar, Shakespeare etc previously featured. How about Stephen Hawking as likely?

Patrick Moore perhaps?

A monument enscribed on a banknote is surely remarkably fitting for Thatcher, though?

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Are you being sincere or sarcastic?

What about doing a range with Doctor Who´s on them? Tennant on the tenners, Eccleston on the twenties, Baker on the fifties.

Churchill should be a safe bet for a future note.

Britannia since they taking her lovely figure off our 50 pence pieces.

I said before Dawkins for the tenner when they replace Darwin.

Tom Paine.

Tom Jones on the Welsh Dollar when they finally leave us... (dirty sexy money indeed).

Yes, of course, how stupid of us all! Churchill.

Nice joke about Dawkins, too.

Has Churchill not been done already? I thought about him yesterday but wasn't sure if he counted as recently dead or not.

Is Stephen Hawking really all that eminent in comparison to Darwin et al? Not so sure myself.
More than half his celebrity is there because of his condition I think. No one would know who he was otherwise.

Well, A Brief History of Time was a major book that got a lot of attention, and sold very well. I think a lot of people will know of his work from that.

Yes but that's just a popular science book. It's not even in the same continent, let alone the same ballpark as conceptualising the theory of evolution or laws of motion.

Do we have any scientists of that stature (Newton and suchlike, who really changed the way we saw the world) now?