John R. Pierce

John Robinson Pierce (27 March 1910 – 2 April 2002), was an American engineer and author. He worked extensively in the fields of radio communication, microwave technology, computer music, psychoacoustics, and science fiction. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, he earned his PhD from Caltech, and died in Palo Alto, California from complications of Parkinson's Disease.

Books

• Electrons, Waves and Messages, Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1956.
• Symbols, Signals and Noise: The Nature and Process of Communication, New York: Harper, 1961.
• with A. Michael Noll, Signals: The Science of Telecommunications, W.H. Freeman, 1990, 247 pp.

Articles

• as J.J. Coupling, "Science for Art's Sake", Astounding Science Fiction, Street & Smith Publications, Nov 1950, pp 83-91.
• "The Computer as a Musical Instrument", Journal of the Audio Engineering Society of America 8:2 (1960), pp 139ff.
• "Portrait of the Machine as a Young Artist", Playboy 12:6 (1965), pp 124-5 & 150 & 182 & 184.
• "Computers and Music", New Scientist 25:431 (1965), pp 423ff.
• with Max V. Mathews, "Some Recollections of James Tenney", Perspectives of New Music 25:1-2 (1987), pp 534-535.
• with Max V. Mathews, "Current Directions in Computer Music Research", in Current Directions in Computer Music Research, MIT Press, 1989.
• "Telstar, A History", SMEC Vintage Electrics (1990).
• "ECHO - America's First Communications Satellite", SMEC Vintage Electrics 2:1 (1990).
• "My Work With Vacuum Tubes At Bell Laboratories", SMEC Vintage Electrics 3:1 (1991).

Talks

• "Creative Thinking", Dec 1951.

Links

• Obituaries: Lucent, Stanford
• Machine Hearing and the Legacy of John R. Pierce, video of a talk at Caltech's EE Centennial celebration by Richard F. Lyon, 2010.
• Pierce at Wikipedia