and the emergence of the new discipline of electronics in the 1940s led to stiff competition between AIEE and IRE, with IRE showing faster growth in the 1950s and early 1960s, and attracting more students. In 1957, the IRE, with approximately 55,500 members, surpassed the AIEE in membership size; by 1962 the IRE had 96,500 members to the AIEE's 57,000. Institute's first logo After the AIEE's founding in 1884, its member's badge was created in 1893 by a committee headed by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, President of AIEE from 1891 to 1892. The badge's logo depicted Benjamin Franklin's kite, representative of the discovery that lightning carried electricity. The design also showed a winding of gold wire with its midpoints crossed by a galvanometer's indicator, invoking the electrical engineer's Wheatstone bridge. Additionally, Ohm's law and the letters 'AIEE' were added in gold at the logo's base. The busy logo design was replaced four years later. Merger and evolution The AIEE and the IRE merged in 1963 to form the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), in short order becoming the world's largest technical society. See also Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) References Notes Bibliography IEEE, Newlife International website. External links American engineering organizations Electrical engineering organizations Organizations established in 1884