There are currently about 46 million glaring,
heavily publicized typos sitting inside the wallets,
purses, and cash registers of an entire nation
right now. Yeah, and they aren't fixed either.
Right. They aren't counterfeit at all. They're
printed by a national government. They're worth
literally billions of dollars in everyday commerce.
And get this, the central bank knows exactly
what they did. It really it challenges our perception
of what authority looks like. I mean, we trust
our money to be this mathematically perfect,
flawlessly engineered institution. Exactly. But
then you look a little closer and realize it's
well, it's as vulnerable to a basic spell check
failure as a high school essay. Welcome to this
deep dive learner. If you're joining us today,
our mission is to take something completely ubiquitous
like something you handle without a second thought
and just crack it open. Right. To reveal the
massive amount of hidden history, the cutting
edge science and the deeply human errors printed
right on its surface. Today, our source material
is the Wikipedia page for the Australian fifty
dollar note. And if you're in Australia or, you
know, familiar with the country, you know, this
isn't just a piece of currency. It has a real
personality. Oh, for sure. It's printed in this
bright, unmistakable yellow gold color, which
has earned it a highly affectionate, slightly
fruity nickname. The pineapple. Handing over
a pineapple to pay for a tank of gas. And what's
amazing to me is that people pass these pineapples
back and forth every single day without ever,
you know, stopping to read the miniature stories
embedded in the plastic. Because when you really
study the $50 note, it stops being just about
money. It acts as a physical timeline. A timeline
of what, exactly? Well, it tracks Australia's
battle with global inflation. It's evolving national
identity. And this is key. The incredibly delicate
balance between world class anti counterfeiting
technology and the messy subjectivity of human
language. OK, let's unpack this because to really
appreciate the modern high tech pineapple, we
have to go back to a time when it didn't even
exist. Right. Let's jump back to 1966. This was
a monumental year for the Australian economy
because it was the initial rollout of decimal
currency. They finally transitioned away from
the incredibly complicated British system of
pounds, shillings, and pence. Right. But in that
huge 1966 rollout, if you went to the bank, you
actually couldn't get a $50 note. They didn't
make one. Exactly. The highest denominations
were much lower, just the 10 and the 20. Really?
Just the 20? Yeah. The reason is simple. You
just didn't need a $50 note yet. I mean, the
purchasing power of a $20 note in 1966 was substantial.
You could buy a week's worth of groceries and
still have change left over Wow, but then the
1970s hit and This is where the global economy
essentially caught a virus you had oil shocks
you had widespread global inflation. Yeah, it
was a rough decade globally. Right. And it took
exactly seven years of this inflation to force
the Australian government's hand. By 1973, everyday
items cost significantly more. The physical cash
in people's pockets wasn't going as far, and
they had to introduce the $50 denomination just
to keep commerce functioning smoothly. To me,
introducing a new massive banknote isn't necessarily
a sign of national progress. It's like releasing
a software patch for a struggling economy. That's
a great way to put it. It's an admission that
your currency's purchasing power is bugged and
you need a hot fix to keep the system running.
That is a brilliant way to frame it. It is an
economic hot fix, but more importantly, it's
a massive public relations challenge. Oh, how
so? Well, when a government issues a brand new
exceptionally high -value banknote specifically
because of inflation, the public is understandably
anxious. people feel like their money is losing
its anchor. Right. It feels unstable. Exactly.
So the design of that specific note becomes psychologically
crucial. The government have to ask themselves,
what visual message do we put in people's wallets
to make them feel secure when the economy feels
so shaky? And their answer in 1973 was hard science.
The original paper $50 note was designed by Gordon
Andrews, and it completely bypassed politicians,
monarchs, or military generals, and went straight
to laboratories and research. Which is such an
interesting choice. On the front, you have this
incredibly detailed portrait of Australian pathologist
Howard Walter Flory, Baron Flory, and he's surrounded
by scenes of laboratory equipment and research.
And Baron Flory wasn't just some local academic.
He was a Nobel laureate who co -discovered penicillin.
Oh, wow. Yeah, he was a monumental figure in
global medicine whose work literally saved millions
of lives. Right. And then on the back of the
note, they double down on the science. They feature
Sir Ian Clooney's Ross. Ah, yes. He was a prominent
veterinary scientist and the very first chairman
of the CSIRO, which is Australia's National Science
Agency. Right, the CSIRO. He's pictured alongside
scenes from the Australian environment, focusing
on agriculture and veterinary science, which,
you know, were the absolute backbone of Australia's
export wealth at the time. If we connect this
to the bigger picture... Putting these specific
scientists and laboratories on the initial $50
note speaks volumes about what a nation wants
to project during times of economic shift. Like
stability. Exactly. They are appealing to the
ultimate objective authority. It's a psychological
cue to the public saying, yes, the economy is
experiencing turbulence, but our foundation is
rational. peer -reviewed and globally significant.
We are anchored by objective truth. So you look
at the know and think, well, Baron Flory cured
bacterial infections. I guess the central bank
can cure inflation. Ah, exactly. That's a very
comforting piece of paper. But that scientific
paper era doesn't last forever. Fast forward
to 1995 and we hit a massive revolution in currency.
Wednesday, October 4th, 1995, the note goes from
paper to polymer. plastic money, and this wasn't
just an aesthetic choice, it was driven by another
technological threat. Counterfeiting. Yep. The
rise of cheap, high -quality color photocopiers,
paper money, no matter how intricate the design,
was just becoming increasingly vulnerable to
everyday counterfeiters. So polymer was the engineering
solution. And with that engineering shift, the
thematic design, which was handled by Brian Sadgrove,
dramatically shifts as well. We move completely
away from the sterile laboratories of the 70s,
and we pivot entirely toward groundbreaking fur
orgs in human history. The people who broke the
social mold. Right. The figures chosen for this
redesign are phenomenal. On the front, we have
David Uniipon. He was a Ngarin Jerry man, a brilliant
inventor who patented a modified handpiece for
sheep shearing. Oh, wow. I didn't know that.
Yeah. And crucially, he was the very first Aboriginal
Australian to publish a work in Australia. The
sheer amount of localized history they packed
into his side of the note is staggering. They
didn't just use his face, they included technical
drawings of his mechanical inventions. Yep, the
shearing handpiece. And they included an actual
extract from the original manuscript of his book,
Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines.
And then, they go even deeper. They included
an illustration of the Rawukan Church, which
is a historical landmark on the mission where
Unaypon grew up. And if you look closely, standing
right in front of that church, they depicted
a specific couple, Polly and Malarum. I found
this detail so fascinating when researching this.
Why Malarum? They could have just drawn generic
figures to represent the community, right? They
could have, yeah. But Malarum was highly respected
as the last initiated member of the local Ngarinjeri
people. He played a massive role in recording
the ancient history of the Ngarinjeri people
of the Karong region. It's incredibly specific.
And the back of the note is equally specific.
You have Edith Cowan, the first female member
of any Australian Parliament. She's pictured
next to Western Australia's original Parliament
House. And there's an illustration of a foster
mother with children, referencing her pioneering
work in women's and children's welfare. What's
fascinating here is that we are witnessing the
aviation of what currency is actually supposed
to do. By the 1990s, the polymer note acts as
a portable monument. A portable monument. I like
that. Think about the contrast from 1973. In
the 70s, the nation established its legitimacy
via sterile objective science. But in the 1990s,
establishing the nation meant honoring social
pioneers and acknowledging deep ancient heritage.
Right, shifting the focus. It's a deliberate
assertion that Australia's wealth isn't just
in its laboratories, you know, it's in its complex
human history, its indigenous roots and its democratic
milestones. I really love that concept. But here's
where it gets really interesting, because unlike
a monument carved out of marble or bronze, this
polymer note is essentially a James Bond gadget.
Oh, absolutely. We are looking at this rich human
history, but beneath the surface there are layers
of hyper advanced security tech that rely on
the physical properties of the plastic itself.
The physical security features are a marvel of
engineering. Because polymer isn't just durable,
it allows for completely different, highly secure
manufacturing techniques that paper simply cannot
support. For instance, the clear window. There
is a completely transparent window right in the
bank note. You can look right through it. And
the way they do this is brilliant. They don't
print a window onto the plastic. They take a
sheet of clear plastic and just intentionally
leave that spot unprinted with opaque ink. Which
is a nightmare for counterfeiters. Right. A counterfeiter
with a scanner literally cannot replicate transparency.
They would have to, like, cut a hole in a piece
of paper and tape plastic into it, which feels
obvious the second you touch it. Exactly. And
inside that clear window, the Southern Cross
Star Formation is printed, and the number 50
is physically embossed into the plastic. And
then there are the secrets you can only see under
a blacklight. If you hold the back of the banknote
up to an ultraviolet light, a hidden patch with
a number 50 suddenly glows. And the serial numbers
are wild. Well, they are. There are two serial
numbers on the note, one printed in black and
one in blue, but they use completely different
fonts for each one, and both of those serial
numbers glow under UV light. Think about how
hard that makes life for someone trying to fake
it. Yeah, you don't just have to fake the ink.
You have to master two completely different printing
algorithms that react specifically to ultraviolet
radiation. only appears when you shine a light
directly through the plastic. It is an absolute
triumph of precision. Every single micron of
this polymer is calculated. It is rigid mathematical
perfection. Which, and this is the best part,
makes the textual mystery on this note so incredibly
ironic. Oh man, yeah. We have this hyper precise,
untouchable James Bond plastic, and right in
the middle of it is a messy, deeply human, highly
contested academic debate over a single word.
The manuscript extract. Yes. Right. So printed
on the front of the note is an excerpt from David
Unapon's manuscript. It reads, as a full -blooded
member of my race, I think I may claim to be
the first, but I hope not the last, to produce
an enduring record of our customs, beliefs, and
imaginings. But here's the problem. The word
imaginings was supposedly misspelled on the original
note and then later corrected by the bank. But
was it actually a mistake? That's the big question.
Because there is an alternate theory, a very
deep academic debate, that suggests Onipon didn't
write imaginings at all. He originally wrote
the word imaging. Imaging without the M. And
the theory suggests that he later changed it
to imaginings himself because the general, predominantly
white public of the time wouldn't understand
the complex epistemological underpinnings of
his original phrasing. Wait, hold on. I'm losing
you a bit here. What is the actual difference
between imaging and imaginings? That's a fair
question. To a layman like me, they sound like
the exact same thing, just daydreaming or picturing
something in your head or making things up. Why
does dropping me in matter so much? Well, this
raises an important question about how history
is preserved and really the power dynamics of
language. Let's break down the epistemology,
which is simply the study of how we know what
we know. For an Aboriginal scholar in the early
20th century, navigating a heavily colonized
society, words carry immense weight. Right. If
you use the word imaginings, it implies myths,
fairy tales, fictions made up in the mind. It
subtly diminishes the reality and validity of
his people's customs and beliefs. It frames them
as quaint stories. Ah, I see. It trivializes
them. Exactly. But imaging, creating an image,
reflecting a true reality, or projecting a concrete
identity into the world is a much more active,
deliberate, and powerful concept. Oh, wow. It
is a philosophical assertion that his people's
beliefs are a real, tangible framework, not just
fantasies. Wow. So by correcting the spelling
to imaginings, by enforcing standard English
grammar on the text, the bank, or even Unipon's
original editors, might have actually been erasing
his deliberate subversive philosophical statement.
That is the core of the debate. We view the bank
note as this flawless piece of technology, but
text is inherently subjective. Language is messy.
Are we fixing a typo, or are we overwriting a
genius who is intentionally bending the English
language to accurately describe his people's
reality? It's a profound philosophical debate
that exists right there in the ink, hidden beneath
the UV security features. perfectly sets the
stage for what happens next in the timeline.
Because if the debate over imaging versus imaginings
is a high -level epistemological mystery, what
happened during the 2018 upgrade was just an
undeniable, incredibly embarrassing mass -produced
blunder. Oh, the modern upgrade. Yes. So to set
the scene in 2012, the Reserve Bank of Australia
announces a massive project to upgrade the nation's
banknotes over the coming years with next -generation
security. They successfully roll out the new
$5 and $10 notes. and then in February 2018,
they proudly unveiled the design for the brand
new, highly anticipated $50 note. It's officially
released to the public in October 2018. And visually,
you know, it's a beautiful continuation of the
1995 theme. They retained the portraits of Edith
Cowan and David Unapon, but they enriched it
by incorporating new artwork by Muriel van der
Beil AM. Right. She is a prominent Karna and
Angaran Jerry artist, deeply tying the modern
note to indigenous artistry. It looks amazing.
It has even more updated mind -bending security
features. It is peak currency technology. Absolutely.
But in May 2019, about seven months after the
release, members of the general public start
looking a little too closely at the microscopic
text printed on Edith Cowan's side of the note.
It's an excerpt from her maiden speech to Parliament.
And they realize something is missing. The letter
I. The letter I. In the word responsibility,
it is literally spelled R -E -S -P. O -N -S -I
-B -I -L -T -Y. Responsibility. It is the ultimate
testament to human error in the face of technological
perfection, isn't it? Yeah, totally. The security
features are impenetrable, the polymer chemistry
is flawless, but someone just forgot to run spell
check on the microtext before they hit print
on the tresses. And I looked up the numbers on
this because my immediate thought was, okay,
they caught a typo, just recall that batch, burn
them, and start over. How many notes could possibly
be affected? A lot. It wasn't a small batch.
It was 46 million notes. 46 million. How can
a government knowingly circulate a typo on that
scale? Because the Reserve Bank of Australia
actually had to come clean and admit they had
known about the typo since December 2018, months
before the public noticed it. Yeah, they knew.
But they just released them into circulation
anyway. Those 46 million typos are still out
there right now, acting as legal tender. It sounds
absurd until you look at the macroeconomic mechanics
of the $50 note. To understand why the central
bank let that slide, you have to realize that
the pineapple is not just another piece of paper.
It is the absolute workhorse of the Australian
economy. Right. Just to give you the scale, in
June 2017, right before this new note was finalized,
there were $686 million $50 notes in circulation.
$686 million. That is an ocean of pineapples.
It equated to over $34 billion. That single denomination
represented 47 % of the total value of all circulating
bank notes in the entire country. Wow. Almost
half of the physical cash value in Australia
was tied up in the $50 note alone. Oh, wow. So
when you realize 46 million of your newest notes
have a typo, you literally can't just recall
them without causing a massive logistical nightmare
for banks, ATMs, and everyday businesses. Exactly.
Think about the pragmatic logic of the Reserve
Bank. These 46 million notes are highly advanced,
they are perfectly secure against counterfeiting,
they function flawlessly in sorting machines,
and they cost a fortune to produce. Yeah, printing
polymer isn't cheap. Right. So destroying tens
of millions of perfectly good banknotes over
a missing letter, in a word, you need a magnifying
glass to see. That would be a massive waste of
taxpayer money. That makes sense. Ironically,
destroying them would be a far worse economic
responsibility than simply letting the typo circulate.
So the bank made the pragmatic choice. You correct
the digital file for the next print run, and
you let the flawed ones do their job in the economy.
Responsibility. I just can't get over the irony
of a spelling mistake on a note honoring Australia's
first published Aboriginal author, a literal
man of letters. Yeah, it's pretty poetic. So
what does this all mean? We started this deep
dive by looking at the $50 note as a canvas,
and it really is. It evolved from this inflation
-driven... It is subject to messy academic debates
over the epistemology of a single word. And it
is vulnerable to the most basic typographical
errors imaginable. The money you ebbs and mindedly
stuff in your pocket to buy a coffee is a brilliantly
engineered, yet wonderfully flawed masterpiece.
And I think that leads to a really fascinating
final thought for you to mull over. We talked
about David Unipon's quote on the front of the
note. His hope to produce an enduring record
of his people's customs and beliefs. He wanted
his truth to survive. the test of time. An enduring
record. Exactly. Now consider the reality of
polymer. It takes an incredibly long time to
degrade. There are 46 million pieces of highly
durable plastic currently circulating, legal
tender, carrying a glaring spelling mistake.
Yeah. Thousands of years from now, when future
historians or archaeologists dig up our wallets
from the ruins of our cities, what kind of enduring
record are we actually leaving behind? Oh, that's
a good question. Will they marvel at our advanced
polymer chemistry, our complex economy, and our
deep reverence for social pioneers? Or will they
just look at this pristine, undegraded piece
of plastic under a microscope and conclude that
for all our immense technological power, we simply
lost the ability to use spell check. A highly
secure museum in your pocket, complete with typos.
We will leave you with that.