Basilar Membrane Traveling Wave: Place-Coded Pitch

This simulator numerically integrates a real, dynamic model of the cochlea's traveling wave: an array of independently driven, damped harmonic oscillators — one per place along the basilar membrane, each tuned to its own characteristic frequency in a log-uniform tonotopic map from base (high frequency) to apex (low frequency) — every one of them switched on only once a base-to-apex travel-time delay has elapsed, so the response visibly sweeps across the membrane like a real traveling wave rather than appearing everywhere instantly. Because each place obeys the exact, closed-form solution of a driven-damped oscillator, its resonance peak sits precisely where the stimulus frequency matches that place's characteristic frequency — the mechanistic basis of place theory. Adjust frequency, level, tuning sharpness and travel time to watch the tonotopic peak move, broaden, and sweep in real time, while live readouts decode the stimulus frequency back out of the place code and compare the measured resonance peak against the closed-form theoretical prediction.