He frequently recalled in later life “drawing water with leaky buckets from deep wells for thirsty mules” as a prod that motivated his intensity in study.

He taught at Dallas High School (1896-7) and worked in the clerk's office of the Bastrop County Court before winning his 1898 scholarship to Harvard.

Though they produced no offspring, they enjoyed some family life with Cornelia and Walter Cannon, a Harvard Medical School physiologist, who drew the Pierces to Franklin, New Hampshire.

His five-part series "Experiments on resonance in wireless telegraph circuits in Physical Review (1904-7) are evidence of his leadership.

And most significantly, he followed up on an innovation of Walter Guyton Cady of Wesleyan University, using quartz crystal to stabilise the frequency of electrical oscillation.

In early attempts, radio communication was severely handicapped by the lack of reliable fixed-frequency operation, and Pierce saw the potential for the quartz-governed circuit.

[4] Insights such as this one resulted in patent assignments, for which Pierce then sold license to use, yielding him the capital to purchase vacation homes in Franklin, New Hampshire, and St. Petersburg, Florida.

In their laboratory, Pierce and A. E. Kennelly undertook an experiment measuring the change in impedance of telephone receivers over a range of audio frequencies when the diaphragm was clamped by finger or quill insert.

He continued to file patents, and he reported on crystal oscillators in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1923 and 1925.