Articles
Magnetism in the Greco-Roman World
February 9, 2025
The electromagnetic revolution in the late 19th century profoundly changed technology and society in all aspects of human life. While the mathematical theory and practical use of electrical technologies is a relatively recent event, electrical and magnetic phenomena such as lightning, St. Elmo’s fire, and the shocks of various fishes and eels have been observed
The Telautograph: Handwriting at a Distance
February 9, 2025
Technological progress and invention is not always a straight line, and often failures and defeats can unexpectedly lead to innovation. Elisha Gray, who on 14 February, 1876 had submitted a caveat to the patent office for a telephone just after Alexander Graham Bell’s patent was submitted, lost rights to the telephone after a lengthy legal
Edwin Moses and the Engineering of World Records
February 9, 2025
By Alexander B. Magoun, Ph.D., IEEE HISTORY CENTER When you come across a list of famous people who are engineers, it typically contains celebrities who started with an education in engineering but then switched to something completely different: think of Rowan Atkinson, Cindy Crawford, or Montel Williams. Left off these lists is Edwin Moses, who
Innovation Looks Both Forward And Backward: How History Fosters Technological Progress
February 9, 2025
By Robert Colburn and Philip Lee, IEEE History Center It is not a sudden discovery; it is an evolution. For every discovery, there is a background and there is going to be a future.” Leslie Geddes Can an understanding of history foster innovation? Certainly many great innovators have said so. Here in their own words—via
Why Mobile Phones Can Do So Many Things: The Invention Of The Fractal Antenna
February 9, 2025
By Robert Colburn, IEEE History Center Mobile phones perform multiple tasks by transmitting and receiving on many different frequencies. For example, when the user first dials, there is a carrier frequency that the phone and the base station communicate with each other to set up the call, establish which cell tower the phone is in
What is a Minicomputer?
February 9, 2025
Alexander B. Magoun, Ph.D., IEEE History Center Minicomputers are back, but then they never really left. In 2015, marketers of personal computers the size of paperback books or grapefruits sell them as “mini computers” when compared to PCs from, say, 2005. In the early 2010s, the innovation of circuit boards a few square centimeters in
Why could Sarnoff sell Stalin Television?
February 9, 2025
Alexander B. Magoun, IEEE History Center IEEE-USA InSight, 19 January 2016 In June 1937, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) engineer Loren Jones arrived in Moscow to fulfill a contract signed 23 months earlier. Jones and five other engineers spent nearly a year installing an electronic television system in the Soviet Union’s capital and transferring electronics
“No Clear Substitutes”: Supply Chain Interruptions And How Engineers Approached Them In The Past
February 5, 2025
By Robert Colburn, Research Coordinator, IEEE History Center Supply chain problems and their complex causes have been getting extensive coverage recently. Supply chain (sometimes also called resource chain) disruptions and price chokepoints are not new, especially in the fields of technology. Alternating current distribution systems became preferred over direct current in part because a French
Tugboat Technology
February 5, 2025
By Robert Colburn, Research Coordinator, IEEE History Center Tugboats are the workhorses of our complicated food and supply chain and of international commerce. Cargo ships need them to dock and to leave harbor safely; tugboats also push and pull barges from port to port carrying a wide variety of cargoes and shipping containers. In emergencies,