Georg von Békésy, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Georg von Békésy

Hungarian physicist

Date of Birth: 03-Jun-1899

Place of Birth: Budapest, Hungary

Date of Death: 13-Jun-1972

Profession: engineer, physicist, chemist, university teacher, physiologist, neuroscientist, biophysicist, autobiographer

Nationality: Hungary, United States

Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Georg von Békésy (Hungarian: Békésy György, IPA: ['be?ke??i]; born in Budapest, Hungary on 3 June 1899 – 13 June 1972) was a Hungarian biophysicist.By using strobe photography and silver flakes as a marker, he was able to observe that the basilar membrane moves like a surface wave when stimulated by sound.
Because of the structure of the cochlea and the basilar membrane, different frequencies of sound cause the maximum amplitudes of the waves to occur at different places on the basilar membrane along the coil of the cochlea.
High frequencies cause more vibration at the base of the cochlea while low frequencies create more vibration at the apex.He concluded that his observations showed how different sound wave frequencies are locally dispersed before exciting different nerve fibers that lead from the cochlea to the brain.
In 1961, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the function of the cochlea in the mammalian hearing organ.