Abstract

The author began to deal with the biophysics of semicircular canals, with initial reference to problems of space medicine, in the early 1970s as a student of the degree course in physics (at that time, four years after high school) and as an experimental thesis. The results were approved by the Council of Europe’s competent committee, and the thesis was also approved with distinction. The research was rapidly and encouragingly developed both as a mathematical and physical modelling and as a study of situations of vestibological interest, but they had to be abandoned for reasons not intrinsic to the project and despite the results already achieved. Some forty years later, the discourse is resumed, in continuity and for coherent lines, in particular on the evolution of the physical-mathematical models to be used, with regard to concerning the anisotropy of perceptual space, about the possible new ways of experimenting on young volunteers and their innovative equipment, and about the enormous expansion and considerable differentiation of application domains

Keywords: Semicircular canals; Human vestibular apparatus; Biophysics; Classical physics; Physiology; Sense organs.