Papers include journals, 1986-1995; biographical and bibliographic materials; correspondence; typescripts of scholarly work, fiction and poetry; music manuscripts; published articles and books; research files; photographs; and other materials. The focus is primarily on his interest in computers and music and his authorship of science fiction stories, with a few published articles and photographs pertaining to the Echo satellite. Other items of note include the report on a visit to British electronics laboratories by J. R. Pierce and H. D. Hagstrum, 1944, and a transcript of a visit with H. G. Wells, 1944.

John R. Pierce earned all three of his degrees at the California Institute of Technology: B.S. in 1933, M.S. in 1934, and Ph.D. in 1936. He worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories from 1936 to 1971, where his work included electronic tubes, microwave communications, and psychoacoustics. After leaving Bell, he joined the faculty at the California Institute of Technology where he taught until 1980 and was a chief technologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1979 to 1982. In 1983 he became a visiting professor of music, emeritus, at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. In addition to his scholarly work, Pierce wrote science fiction under the name of J. J. Coupling, as well as his own.

9 Linear feet

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