Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)

1958-11-01 / 11. szám

FRATERNITY

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the Hungarian Americans and what they have contributed to our new land. To the long list of our outstanding countrymen we are adding another one, whose marked ability in research won the respect of all nations, who opened the doors to knowledge, who developed a new theory of hearing and who was able to teach what he had himself discovered.

★ ★ ★

GEORGE von BÉKÉSY Scholar, Teacher, Research Scientist

George von Békésy was born in Budapest on June 3, 1899, of a noble Hungarian family. After he finished his intermediate schools with an excellent record, he studied at the University of Berne from 1918 to 1920 when that quiet town — an oasis in a war-torn world — was drawing scholars from all over Europe. The competition of keen minds was a stimulus and inspiration to him.

Afterwards he studied at the “Pázmány Péter” University in Budapest where in 1923 he received his Ph. D. The ink had hardly dried on his graduation papers when he joined the teaching staff of the Alma Mater.

Shortly after he won the Denker Prize in otology in 1931, lie was invited to take the post of a private dozent (1932-39). Even though teaching was only a side-line occupation to him, von Békésy rose rapidly in the Hungarian teachers’ hierarchy. In 1939 he was made assistant professor and but one year later he was entrusted with a regular professorate, which position he filled until 1946, with full recognition from his fellow-professors as well as his students.

During these years of successful teaching he did not permit himself to become immersed in the realm of theoretical research, but sought application to practical use of the theories he evolved. He was enabled to do this the more readily because he entered the service of the Hungarian Telephone System right after his graduation and it was the well equipped laboratory of this company in which he conducted most of his important experiments. In 1926-27 he got acquainted with the leading German otologists in the Zentral Laboratory of Siemens-Halske A. G. in Berlin. In those tragic days of 1947, when the Communists openly took