IEEE Logo

Most recent answer: 10/22/2007

Q:
What was the famous experiment conducted by benjamin Franklin? The IEEE logo has an arrow inside a parallelogram. The parallelogram signified this famous experiemtn by Franklin. What was this experiment? Also, I know that IEEE was formed as a chlid of two institutes. One had its logo as the parallelogram and the other had the arrow. What does the arrow signify?
- Bhaskar Dani (age 23)
New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA
A:
(from a glossary found on www.ieee.org)

LOGO, IEEE (See Logo Usage Guidelines at XXXX )

The Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers evolved from two separate societies, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), formed in 1884, and the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE), established in 1912. The two groups ultimately realized that their general interests lay together and so in 1963 the AIEE and the IRE merged to form the IEEE. The IEEE emblem today is a culmination of the original society emblems.

A committee headed by Alexander Graham Bell in 1893 designed the AIEE’s first member badge. Its kite-shaped outline represented Benjamin Franklin’s kite. An actual coil of gold wire marked its periphery with midpoints spanned by a galvanometer complete with blued steel needle and covered by an amber disc. Thus, it depicted the Wheatstone bridge, the earliest observation of electrical phenomena by Thales, and the source of the word electricity.

In 1897 a new AIEE logo was developed. The main focus of its design was two linked circles that represented the relation of the electric and magnetic fields. In 1912 the IRE chose for its logo the triangle and arrows representing electrical and magnetic forces in the conventional "right - hand rule" relationship.

The Institute’s present logo combines recognizable features from the original badges and is recognized worldwide as a sign of distinction.

(published on 10/22/2007)