Karl von Frisch

Frisch, Karl von 

Born Nov. 20, 1886, in Vienna. German physiologist (Federal Republic of Germany).

Frisch graduated from the University of Vienna in 1910. He received his doctoral degree in the same year. From 1914 to 1918, Frisch worked at the Red Cross Hospital in Vienna. He later worked at the universities of Rostock (1921–23), Breslau (1923–25; now Wroclaw), and Munich (from 1950, professor; from 1958, professor emeritus).

Frisch’s principal works deal with the sense organs of fish and insects. He has also studied the physiological and biological characteristics of bees. Frisch broadly applied the method of the formation of conditioned reflexes. In 1920–22 he published a series of works that were highly regarded by I. P. Pavlov. In his classic work, The Dancing Bees (1942), Frisch deciphered the mechanism by which bees communicate and orient themselves and determined how the insects determine direction of flight and distance to goals.

Frisch shared a Nobel Prize in 1973 with K. Lorenz and N. Tinbergen.

WORKS

Die Tänze der Bienen. Österreichische Zoologische Zeitschrift, 1946, vol. 1, nos. 1–2.
Erinnerungen eines Biologen, 2nd ed. Berlin et al., 1962.
Tanzsprache und Orientierung der Bienen. Berlin et al., 1965.
Du und das Leben, 18th ed. Berlin et al., 1966.
Biologie, 3rd ed., vols. 1–2. Munich, 1967.
In Russian translation:
Iz zhiznipchel. Moscow, 1966.

M. S. GILIAROV