George Washington Pierce was an American physicist. He was a professor of physics at Harvard University and inventor in the development of electronic telecommunications.
George Washington Pierce
A crystal oscillator is an electronic oscillator circuit that uses a piezoelectric crystal as a frequency-selective element. The oscillator frequency is often used to keep track of time, as in quartz wristwatches, to provide a stable clock signal for digital integrated circuits, and to stabilize frequencies for radio transmitters and receivers. The most common type of piezoelectric resonator used is a quartz crystal, so oscillator circuits incorporating them became known as crystal oscillators. However, other piezoelectricity materials including polycrystalline ceramics are used in similar circuits.
A miniature 16 MHz quartz crystal enclosed in a hermetically sealed HC-49/S package, used as the resonator in a crystal oscillator.
Quartz crystal resonator (left) and quartz crystal oscillator (right)
100 kHz crystal oscillators at the US National Bureau of Standards that served as the frequency standard for the United States in 1929
Very early Bell Labs crystals from Vectron International Collection