Monday, August 27, 2007

Top 5 banknote chemists

1) Louis Pasteur - 5 Francs, France
A colorful banknote with his portrait, lab-glassware and the Pasteur institue in Paris.
This building is now Pasteur's Museum where his tomb is.



2) Marie Curie and Pierre Curie - 500 fancs, France

Another colorful banknote, Pierre in the background and lab-glassware on the backside of the banknote. 100 times more value than Pasteur is quite an honor.


There is anothe banknote with Marie Curie, but this one is not that colorful.


20000 złoty, Poland1 złoty is about 0.36 USD, so you may think that this is a lot of money. But in 1995 after hyperinflation 10,000 old złotych became 1 new złoty. This old banknote represents about 0.7 USD.


3) Janet Mullen - 20 pounds, ScotlandThe picture of a woman in the lab was used to refer to illustrate research and education. The banknote was issued in 1995 to mark the 300th anniversary of the Bank of Scotland. It took three months untill she realized that it was her picture on that banknote. When she spoke with the bank they gave her two of the £20 notes in a framed presentation case. In 2005 journalists of the RSC searched for the unknown chemist on the banknote.

4) Paul Ehrlich - 200 DMark, Germany

No very colorful but it has a portrait and a molcule of Arsphenamine on it.


5) Justus von Liebig - 100 Reichsmark, Germany
An old and dusty banknote for an old chemist.


Janet Mullen is the only chemist who's still alive, and the least famous as well.

Nobody knows what kind of banknotes will be issued in the future.Hmmmm, I hope not...

2 comments:

t said...

The current Danish 500 kroner bill has a portrait of Niels Bohr:

http://www.nationalbanken.dk/C1256B730054214F/sysOakGraphic/500kr_1997/$File/500sammenny.JPG

t said...

sorry .. I thought that link would work