Lawrence P. Lessing is an American

science writer Science journalism conveys reporting about science to the public. The field typically involves interactions between scientists, journalists, and the public. Origins Modern science journalism dates back to '' Digdarshan'' (means showing the d ...

. A native of

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

, he started his career as a newspaper man in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

. There he was a correspondent for ''Time'' magazine. He was a long-time member of the board of editors of ''Fortune'' magazine, where he contributed articles on electronics, jet propulsion, automation, metallurgy. From 1953 to 1955, he was an editor and contributor to ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

''. Lessing won the 1965 AAAS-Westinghouse Science Journalism Award for his article in ''Fortune'' on the causes of earthquakes. Lessing is the author of three books, ''Man of High Fidelity:

Edwin Howard Armstrong Edwin Howard Armstrong (December 18, 1890 – February 1, 1954) was an American electrical engineer and inventor, who developed FM (frequency modulation) radio and the superheterodyne receiver system. He held 42 patents and received numerous awa ...

'' (1956), ''Understanding Chemistry'' (1957), and ''DNA: at the core of life itself'' (1967). He was for some time on the editorial board of ''Fortune'' magazine and was a vigorous opponent of government interference with and distortion of scientific fact (see, for instance, his essay "In Defense of Science", and "Man of High Fidelity"). Lawrence Lessing collaborated with graphic designer Will Burtin for more than twenty years. The two are best known for the juxtaposition of Burtin's graphics with Lessing's descriptive copy. In a wartime project commissioned in 1942 by The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on behalf of the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF), Burtin and Lessing create
aerial gunnery manuals
to teach new bomber crew gunners how to range and aim their Browning machine guns in order to hit fast–moving enemy fighters. The two worked together again at ''Fortune'' magazine from 1945: Burtin became the magazine's art director, Lessing a noted science and technology writer and editor. Burtin started his own graphic design company in 1949, commissioning Lessing to write much of the text for the designer's science–based projects. Their collaboration extended through a series of Burtin's large-scale medical models from the late 1950s, ending only with Burtin's death in 1971.

Works

*''Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong'' Lawrence Lessing. Lippincott; (1956) ASIN B0007DVUK4 *''Understanding Chemistry''. Lawrence Lessing. Interscience Publishers (1957) *''DNA: At the Core of Life Itself'' Lawrence P. Lessing. Macmillan Publishing Company (1967)

Honors

* James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry (1963) * AAAS-Westinghouse Science Journalism Award (1965)

References

Design and Science: The Life and Work of Will Burtin
by R. Roger Remington and Robert S. P. Fripp. See Lessing references on pp. 36, 37, 46, 47 and 59. Lund Humphries Publishing (2007). ISBN 978-85331-968-9 Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American technology journalists American male journalists American science writers {{US-journalist-20thC-stub