Bekesy
Bekesy, Georg von (1899-1972) Hungarian Physicist Georg von Bekesy was born in Budapest, Hungary, on June 3, 1899. To Alexander von Bekesy, a diplomat, and his wife Paula. He received his early education in Munich,
| The Monarch butterfly is a chemically protected species that is mimicked by the Viceroy. This is known as Batesian mimicry. (Courtesy of Tim McCabe) |
Constantinople, Budapest, and in a private school in Zurich. He received a Ph.D. in physics in 1923 from the University of Budapest for a method he developed for determining molecular weight. He began working for the Hungarian Telephone and Post Office Laboratory in Budapest until 1946. During the years 1939-46 he was also professor of experimental physics at the University of Budapest.
While his research was concerned mainly with problems of long-distance telephone transmission, he conducted the study of the ear as a main component of the transmission system. He designed a telephone earphone and developed techniques for rapid, nondestructive dissection of the cochlea.
In 1946 he moved to Sweden as a guest of the Karolinska Institute and did research at the Technical Institute in Stockholm. Here he developed a new type of audiometer. The following year he moved to the United States to work at Harvard University in the Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory and developed a mechanical model of the inner ear. He received the Nobel Prize in 1961 for his discoveries concerning the physical mechanisms of stimulation within the cochlea. Georg von moved on to the University of Hawaii in 1966, where a special laboratory was built for him.
He received numerous honors during his lifetime. He died on June 13, 1972, in Honolulu.
