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Prof. dr. nob. Georg von Békésy, Nobel Laureate

Received: 13 July 2020    Accepted: 03 August 2020    Published: 03 September 2020
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Abstract

Békésy organized his experiments with great care, and often sought the opinion of those around him. This points to a very important personality trait: I think he was fully aware of the limitations of his knowledge and was trying to expand them through discussions with others. Like Hungarian personalities who went abroad in general, he changed his first name to Georg (instead of György); he used the noble forename von characteristic for English, and this is how he appears in his dissertations. He used his surname in its Hungarian form, having accents on the letters é. In 1961, nobleman Georg von Békésy received the Nobel Prize in Medicine: “for his discoveries of the physical mechanisms of stimulation within the cochlea”. To be sure, Georg von Békésy is the only Nobel Laureate scientist in the entire history of the Nobel Prizes who bequeathed his collection of precious art objects and all the rest of his properties to the Nobel Foundation that he made his exclusive successor. For Békésy the Nobel Prize and the Nobel Foundation created by Alfred Nobel, were innovative products similar to Swedish steel. The essence of Békésy’s discovery is the clarification of the energy conversion process in the cochlea. He succeeded in designing measuring devices with which he could measure all the mechanical functions of the hearing organ, and express it with numerical data. At the end of the article we write the genealogy of Georg von Békésy.

DOI 10.11648/j.hss.20200805.12
Published in Humanities and Social Sciences (Volume 8, Issue 5, September 2020)
Page(s) 143-146
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Georg von Békésy, Nobel Prize, Genealogy, Audiology

References
[1] Vincze, J. (2019). Georg von Békésy. Budapest: NDP P.
[2] Vincze, J. (2015). Georg von Békésy – academician. In: Vincze J. ed. We remember our physicians Vol. 29. Budapest: NDP P. 150–154. [in Hungarian].
[3] Békésy, G. (1974). Some Biophysical Experiments from Fifty Years ago. Annual Rev. Physiol. 36, 1–18.
[4] Tarnóczy, T. (1973). Georg von Békésy. Letter of Physics in Hungarian: Fizikai Szemle. 23, 129–132.
[5] Békésy, G. (1928). Über den Einfluss der nichtlinearen Eísenverzerrungen auf die Güte und Verständ¬lichkeit eines Telephonie-Übértragungssystemes. Elektrische Nachrichten-technik, 5, 231–246.
[6] Vincze, J. (2007). Békésy’s relics of the past from Kolozsvár. FIRKA, Cluj, 17 (4), 150–152. [in Hungarian].
[7] Békésy, G. (1960). Experiments in Hearing. New York, Toronto, London: McGRAW-HILLBokk Comp. Inc.
[8] Dániel, J. (1990). Georg Békésy [in Hungarian: Békésy György]. Budapest: Akadémia P.
[9] Vincze, J. (2010). The “Békésy-nest” in Kolozsvár. In: Vincze J. ed. We remember our physicians. Vol. 7. Budapest: NDP P, 147–166. [in Hungarian].
[10] Prendergast, G., Hymers, M., & Lee, A. (2020). A quick and reliable estimate of extended high-frequency hearing. International J. of Audiology, Early Access: Jun.
[11] Decruy, L., Das, N., Verschueren, E.&Francart, T. (2018). The Self-Assessed Be´kesy Procedure: Validation of a Method to Measure Intelligibility of Connected Discourse. Trends in Hearing, 22, 1–13.
[12] Kreft, H. A., DeVries, L. A., Arenberg, J. G. &Oxenham, A. J. (2019). Comparing Rapid and Traditional Forward-Masked Spatial Tuning Curves in Cochlear-Implant Users. Trends in Hearing, 23, 1–9.
[13] Manley, G. A. (2018). Travelling waves and tonotopicity in the inner ear: a historical and comparative perspective. Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 204, 773–781.
[14] Dallos, P. & Canlon, B. (2019). Introduction to "Good Vibrations": A Special Issue to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Nobel Prize to Georg von Bekesy. Hearing Research. 293 (1-2) 1-2.
[15] Vincze, J. (2018). The genealogy of Georg von Békésy, Nobel laureate. Medical Weeklyin Hungarian: Orvosi Hetilap. 8 (159) 155–158.
[16] Wirgin, J. (1974). The Georg von Békésy Collection. Allhems Förlag Malmö, Nolbel Foundation.
Author Information
  • Health Human International Environment Foundation, Budapest, Hungary

  • Health Human International Environment Foundation, Budapest, Hungary

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    Janos Vincze, Gabriella Vincze-Tiszay. (2020). Prof. dr. nob. Georg von Békésy, Nobel Laureate. Humanities and Social Sciences, 8(5), 143-146. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.hss.20200805.12

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    Janos Vincze; Gabriella Vincze-Tiszay. Prof. dr. nob. Georg von Békésy, Nobel Laureate. Humanit. Soc. Sci. 2020, 8(5), 143-146. doi: 10.11648/j.hss.20200805.12

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    AMA Style

    Janos Vincze, Gabriella Vincze-Tiszay. Prof. dr. nob. Georg von Békésy, Nobel Laureate. Humanit Soc Sci. 2020;8(5):143-146. doi: 10.11648/j.hss.20200805.12

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  • @article{10.11648/j.hss.20200805.12,
      author = {Janos Vincze and Gabriella Vincze-Tiszay},
      title = {Prof. dr. nob. Georg von Békésy, Nobel Laureate},
      journal = {Humanities and Social Sciences},
      volume = {8},
      number = {5},
      pages = {143-146},
      doi = {10.11648/j.hss.20200805.12},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.hss.20200805.12},
      eprint = {https://download.sciencepg.com/pdf/10.11648.j.hss.20200805.12},
      abstract = {Békésy organized his experiments with great care, and often sought the opinion of those around him. This points to a very important personality trait: I think he was fully aware of the limitations of his knowledge and was trying to expand them through discussions with others. Like Hungarian personalities who went abroad in general, he changed his first name to Georg (instead of György); he used the noble forename von characteristic for English, and this is how he appears in his dissertations. He used his surname in its Hungarian form, having accents on the letters é. In 1961, nobleman Georg von Békésy received the Nobel Prize in Medicine: “for his discoveries of the physical mechanisms of stimulation within the cochlea”. To be sure, Georg von Békésy is the only Nobel Laureate scientist in the entire history of the Nobel Prizes who bequeathed his collection of precious art objects and all the rest of his properties to the Nobel Foundation that he made his exclusive successor. For Békésy the Nobel Prize and the Nobel Foundation created by Alfred Nobel, were innovative products similar to Swedish steel. The essence of Békésy’s discovery is the clarification of the energy conversion process in the cochlea. He succeeded in designing measuring devices with which he could measure all the mechanical functions of the hearing organ, and express it with numerical data. At the end of the article we write the genealogy of Georg von Békésy.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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