Békésy, Georg von

born June 3, 1899, Budapest, Hung.

died June 13, 1972, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.

Hungarian-born U.S. physicist and physiologist.

He immigrated to the U.S. in 1947 and taught at Harvard University in 1947–66. He discovered that sound vibrations travel along a membrane in the cochlea in waves, peaking at different places, where nerve receptors determine pitch and loudness. His research resulted in greatly expanded understanding of the hearing process, partly through instrumentation Békésy had helped design, and the differentiation of forms of deafness, which permitted the selection of proper treatment. He received a 1961 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

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▪ American physicist and physiologist

born June 3, 1899, Budapest, Hungary

died June 13, 1972, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.

      American physicist and physiologist who received the 1961 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the physical means by which sound is analyzed and communicated in the cochlea, a portion of the inner ear.

      As director of the Hungarian Telephone System Research Laboratory (1923–46), Békésy worked on problems of long-distance communication and became interested in the mechanics of human hearing. At the telephone laboratory, the University of Budapest (1939–46), the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm (1946–47), and Harvard University (1947–66) he conducted intensive research that led to the construction of two cochlea models and highly sensitive instruments that made it possible to understand the hearing process, differentiate between certain forms of deafness, and select proper treatment more accurately.

      Since the mid-19th century, it had been known that the vibratory tissue most important for hearing is the basilar membrane, stretching the length of the snail-shaped cochlea and dividing it into two interior canals. Békésy found that sound travels along the basilar membrane in a series of waves, and he demonstrated that these waves peak at different places on the membrane: low frequencies toward the end of the cochlea and high frequencies near its entrance, or base. He discovered that the location of the nerve receptors and the number of receptors involved are the most important factors in determining pitch and loudness.

      Békésy became professor of sensory sciences at the University of Hawaii in 1966. His books include Experiments in Hearing (1960) and Sensory Inhibition (1967).

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