In Ruritania, there are four denominations of banknotes.
The Ruritanian Royal Bank issues them in unequal quantities, according to
perceived need, and on a rotating basis changes the designs to make forgery
more difficult and less remunerative. One design is changed every three years,
and once changed the old notes for that denomination cease to be valid. So each
design has a life of twelve years.
In the past, the designs comprised abstract and complicated
backgrounds (so-called guilloché or burelage )
combined with unique fonts in mostly calligraphic styles, all designed to
defeat attempts at forgery. But at the urging of a modernising Ruritanian
government, some decades ago now, the bank changed its policy and all new
designs incorporate representations of dead people who are remembered for their
achievements. The modernising government wanted to see different kinds of
people and different kinds of achievement represented, but did not bind the
bank to any particular formula.
That posed the bank a problem. How many different kinds of
people are there? How many kinds of achievement? Without answers to those prior
questions it was very hard to know how to proceed. The Bank did not at first
identify this problem and started out without any clear answers, rather hoping
that obvious cases would present themselves, as indeed they did. Mr Shakespeare, Ruritania’s most famous and
acclaimed dead playwright, had his image uncontroversially placed on a twenty
pounds sterling banknote in 1970. It was true but irrelevant that there have
always been doubts about whether images of Mr Shakespeare look at all like the
man they purport to represent and, indeed, whether Mr Shakespeare wrote his
Works. Never mind, Ruritanian history has always been strong on fiction.
The lack of clear principles of choice immediately
encouraged subjects of Ruritania to come forward with humble petitions
addressed to the Governor of the Bank proposing that such and such a person, or
group of persons, or achievement, or group of achievements, should be
represented on the next banknote scheduled for replacement. In the common
parlance of the United States, these humble petitions - however worded in terms
of justice, fairness and representation not to mention Greatness - were
necessarily instances of log rolling.
Anyway, the Bank had a new problem. Should it now respond
to the biggest logs rolled its way or should it seek to establish some
principles of fair representation? The Governor decided that Principles should
be sought. A committee was formed to find them.
After the usual lengthy deliberations, the committee
proposed that two categories of person should be recognised (Male and Female)
and four categories of achievement (Arts, Science, Politics, War). The
committee pointed out that these numbers had been arrived at having regard to
the reality of four bank note combinations. All eight possible combinations of
the categories (which they summarised as MA, MS, MP, MW; FA, FS, FP, FW) could
be represented on four notes in just two complete banknote cycles. There would
be no awkward remainders to deal with.
As for the actual personages to be represented, the
committee concluded that (a) that they all be dead - there was no disagreement
about that - and (b) that it was up to the Governor to decide between several
possible selection procedures enumerated as follows: a committee of experts and / or the Great & the Good to
pick the person to be featured in any of the eight categories; a simple lottery the tickets for which would bear names
selected by some method or other; a weighted lottery
with the number of tickets for each name equal to the number of signatures on
humble petitions submitted in favour of that name - this was seen as a
concession to log rolling;
The committee also felt that a further accommodation of the
public was possible:
· A list of names, carefully selected by the Bank’s own
committee, could be submitted to public vote according to one of the recognised
procedures (first past the post, and so on). This proposal neatly
incorporated a guarantee against any possibility of an overwhelming public vote
in favour of Banky McBankface. The name would simply not appear among the
choices submitted for popular choice.
The committee did identify one unresolved problem. Since
banknotes of the four denominations are issued in unequal quantities, it might
be thought that the representational value of the image on them should be
weighted according to the number of banknotes on which that image would appear.
The committee noted that this would remove an element of simplicity from its
proposals and would require assistance from someone able to do difficult sums.
The committee then took cover.
When it learned of the committee’s recommendations, the
government of Ruritania was appalled. There were far too few categories of
person and it was not sure that “War” was any longer a category of achievement.
What about “Entertainment” or “Sport” - perhaps these could be combined into
“Culture”? If “War” was then added to “Politics”, that would
preserve the four categories of achievement. A neat counter-proposal.
But as for categories of person, the government felt it had
a duty of special care for the Ruritanian Minorities of which thirty nine were
currently recognised. How did the Bank propose to ensure that those minorities
featured appropriately on the four denominations with only its Male and Female
categories available?
The Bank replied humbly that it thought that it could cope
with the increased complexity demanded by the government but would need a few
extra mathematicians, a new computer, and an answer from the government to two
remaining questions: Are the thirty nine minorities to be represented equally
within the Person categories or in weighted form according to the number of
persons identified as being members of those minorities? And if the latter,
should the number be those actually living or the number who have ever lived
within the borders of Ruritania? The second question was given its point by the
twin facts that all Persons had to be dead in order to qualify and that today’s
Ruritanian Minorities were not distributed in the same proportions or same
aggregate numbers as the Minorities of yesteryear.
The government appointed a small committee of
mathematicians to come up with its reply to these two supplementary questions
and it is hoped that a Nobel Prize (possibly for Mathematics but preferably for
Peace) will result.
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