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Germany celebrates the Max Planck society (top), France salutes the chemist Paul Sabatier (middle) and Britain honours its Nobel winners. Credit: MUSÉE DE LA POSTE; CONSIGNIA

As the acknowledged leader in your research field, you've earned the respect of colleagues, and that phone call from the Nobel prize committee will surely not be long in coming. But have you got what it takes to appear on a postage stamp? Very possibly, if you're a physicist in Germany, according to a new survey — but definitely not if you're a British mathematician.

Bob Jones, a retired chemist and keen stamp collector living in Meols in north-west England, scoured the entire philatelic output of Britain, France and Germany between 1951 and 1990 for sticky-backed science images.

“In an age where we no longer erect statues to our heroes, being celebrated on a postage stamp is an important mark of distinction,” Jones says. “But most specialists think their own area is not properly represented.”

Jones's trawl through national catalogues for the period discovered scientific images on 63 (6.2%) of the 1,022 commemorative stamps issued in Britain. In France it was 85 (4.7%) from 1,788 stamps, whereas science appeared on 49 (3.6%) of the 1,365 stamps produced by the then West Germany.

Where science does appear, countries differ in their approaches. More than 80% of French science stamps in the survey celebrate individuals; in Germany the proportion is nearer two-thirds, whereas a mere one British science stamp in ten carries a portrait. This is perhaps in deference to Queen Elizabeth II, whose silhouette adorns every British stamp, encouraging designers to illustrate concepts, rather than people, in their work.

There are also different national partialities for particular disciplines. Biological science, including medicine, leads the way in the United Kingdom (on 33 stamps) and France (28 stamps), but appears less often on German stamps (10) than do physics (33) and maths (12). Although British chemists have claimed 36 Nobel prizes, the subject has appeared only 13 times on the country's stamps. And UK mathematics or mathematicians haven't appeared once.