Tuesday 25 June 2013

Scientist exchange rates

Tyler Cowen pointed to a site highlighting all the currency notes featuring the pictures of scientists and mathematicians.

I was interested in the implied scientist exchange rates. If an Euler is worth 10 Swiss Francs and a Rutherford is worth 100 New Zealand Dollars, and a Swiss Franc is $1.38 NZ, is a Rutherford really worth 7.23 Eulers? I hardly think so. Rutherford was great, but if we're having some fantasy league of most-important-scientists-and-mathematicians, I'd trade a half-dozen Rutherfords to get a single Euler. Euler is then here underpriced.

Fun Twitter comments on same, though note that I had the exchange rate wrong on Twitter first time round.
I also liked this one:
Definition of high-powered money: it's what happens as the velocity of the Einstein note approaches c!

3 comments:

  1. Isn't the esteem represented by recognition on a banknote related to the total value (or even number) of those notes in circulation? That is, the Swiss frequently see an Euler but we kiwis rarely run across a Rutherford.

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  2. if a Manitoba Canadian is worth twice the price of a $NZ Bernard Hick and an idiot Tony Alexander,then he says
    by some meaningless derivative theory quantitative easing has he not devalued himself, and is not the end of Economists as we know them

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  3. Oh, that's a fun alternative. I like it.

    ReplyDelete