Electronics engineer John Pierce (born 1910) is a pioneer in the development of communication by satellite. While working for communications giant Bell Laboratories, Pierce proposed the Echo 1, Telstar, and Relay satellites and patented nearly 100 devices, many of which aid in communications technology in the form of amplifiers and vacuum tubes.

Pierce is a prolific writer as well, having authored more than a dozen scientific books, hundreds of technical papers on science and technology, and even some science fiction stories. Some of his later research focused on the intersection of science and music theory, and he was instrumental in the advance of computers in music composition and performance.

Early Life

John Robinson Pierce was born March 27, 1910, in Des Moines, Iowa. His parents were John Starr and Harriett Anne (Robinson) Pierce. Pierce attended Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, where as a teenager he learned to fly a glider...