Georg von Békésy
Hungarian physicist (1899-1972) · United States · Scientists · Died at 73
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Something wrong?He proved how the ear sorts pitch - watching a membrane ripple under strobe light, he mapped the wave that turns sound into geography before it becomes nerve signal.
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About this person
Georg von Békésy was a Hungarian-American biophysicist born 3 June 1899. Using strobe photography and silver flakes as markers, he observed the basilar membrane moving like a surface wave when sound hit it. The cochlea's structure meant different frequencies peaked at different points along the membrane's coil: high frequencies vibrated the base, low frequencies the apex. He concluded that sound wave frequencies disperse locally before exciting distinct nerve fibers running from cochlea to brain. In 1961 he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for that work on mammalian hearing. He died 13 June 1972.
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