George of Békésy

Georg von Békésy (1961)

Georg von Békésy or György von Békésy (born June 3, 1899 in Budapest as Békésy György ; † June 13, 1972 in Honolulu , Hawaii ) was a Hungarian - American biophysicist , physiologist and, due to his contributions to auditory physiology, Nobel Prize winner for medicine .

Life

Békésy created a hearing theory that took into account the then new findings about the anatomical structure of the inner ear and thus replaced Helmholtz 's idea of the vibrating hearing strings (resonance hypothesis). Instead, von Békésy postulated the so-called traveling wave theory , which today, however, no longer has to be regarded as sufficient (see English article) and has since been supplemented by a new theory that provides for a cellular amplifier ( cochlear amplifier ).

Von Békésy worked as a physicist in Budapest from 1923 to 1946 , worked in the laboratories of Siemens and Halske in Berlin and was appointed professor at the University of Budapest in 1940. After the Second World War he first moved to Sweden and from 1947 he worked in the USA, first at Harvard University , where he was a Senior Research Fellow from 1949 , and from 1966 as a professor at the University of Hawaii .

In 1947, Békésy presented an audiometer for the differential diagnosis of sensorineural disorders . In 1954 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1956 to the National Academy of Sciences .

In 1961 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his pioneering work on the theory of human hearing ( "for his discoveries of the physical mechanism of stimulation within the cochlea" , for his discoveries of the physical mechanism of stimulation within the cochlea ).

Georg von Békésy was a member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina from 1962 . He was unable to give a lecture planned in 1971 for health reasons.

Publications (selection)

Concerning the pleasures of observing, and the mechnics of the inner ear , Stockholm, 1962
Experiments in hearing , New York, McGraw-Hill, 1960
Sensory inhibition , Princeton, New York: Princeton University Press, 1967, ISBN 0-691-08612-5
The ear , San Francisco, Calif. : WH Freeman, 1957

literature

Georg von Békésy: Physiology of the sensory inhibition , Goldmann, Munich 1972. ISBN 3-442-50001-X
Georg von Békésy: Experiments in hearing. New York 1960 (from the McGraw series in psychology ).
Heinz-Peter Schmiedebach : Békésy, György von. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 161 f.

Web links

Commons : Georg von Békésy - collection of images, videos and audio files

Literature by and about Georg von Békésy in the bibliographic database WorldCat
Literature by and about Georg von Békésy in the catalog of the German National Library
BÉKÉSY, György in the CESA project
Information from the Nobel Foundation on the 1961 award ceremony for Georg von Békésy (English)

Individual evidence

↑ Georg von Békésy's membership entry at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on October 12, 2012.
↑ Ernst Kern : Seeing - Thinking - Acting of a surgeon in the 20th century. ecomed, Landsberg am Lech 2000. ISBN 3-609-20149-5 , p. 84 f.

personal data
SURNAME	Békésy, Georg von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Békésy, György
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Hungarian - American physicist and physiologist
DATE OF BIRTH	June 3, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH	Budapest
DATE OF DEATH	June 13, 1972
Place of death	Honolulu , Hawaii

[1] Georg von Békésy's membership entry at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on October 12, 2012.

[2] Ernst Kern : Seeing - Thinking - Acting of a surgeon in the 20th century. ecomed, Landsberg am Lech 2000. ISBN 3-609-20149-5 , p. 84 f.