George Washington Pierce

Born on 11 January 1872 on a farm in Webberville, Texas, George Washington Pierce was a physicist, teacher, inventor, and one of the founders of communication engineering. After earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics at the University of Texas at Austin, Pierce earned a second master’s degree and a PhD at Harvard University. After a year of study under Ludwig Boltzmann in Leipzig, Germany, from 1901 to 1902, Pierce returned to Harvard, where he taught courses in physics and radio communications from 1903 to 1940. Named the first director of Harvard’s Cruft High Tension Electrical Laboratory in 1914, Pierce went on to develop the quartz-crystal Pierce oscillator used in radio transmitters. His work in ultrasound and submarine detection during World War I led to the development of sonar. By 1920 Pierce was a leading radio expert, having published two classic texts, Principles of Wireless Telegraphy (1910) and Electric Oscillations and Electric Waves (1919). He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1920, received a Medal of Honor from the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1929, and was awarded the Franklin Medal in 1943. He died in 1956 at age 84. (Photo credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

Date in History: 11 January 1872