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4. On a Mechanical Theory of Thermo-Electric Currents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2015

William Thomson
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Extract

It was discovered by Peltier that heat is absorbed at a surface of contact of bismuth and antimony in a compound metallic conductor, when electricity traverses it from the bismuth to the antimony, and that heat is generated when electricity traverses it in the contrary direction. This fact, taken in connection with Joule's law of the electrical generation of heat in a homogeneous metallic conductor, suggests the following assumption, which is the foundation of the theory at present laid before the Royal Society.

Type
Proceedings 1851-52
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 3 , 1857 , pp. 91 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1857

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References

page no 92 note * The values of this function, calculated from Regnault's observations, and the hypothesis that the density of saturated steam follows the “gaseous laws,” for every degree of temperature from 0° to 230° cent., are shewn in Table I. of the author's “Account of Carnot's Theory,” Transactions, vol. xvi., p. 541.

page no 92 note † See Philosophical Magazine, Dec. 1851, “On Applications of the Principle of Mechanical Effect,” &c.

page no 92 note ‡ “Dynamical Theory of Heat” (Transactions, vol. xx., part ii.) Prop. II., &c.

page no 94 note * The unit of force adopted in magnetic and electro-magnetic researches, being that force which, acting on a unit of matter, generates a unit of velocity in the unit of time, the values of μ and J used in this paper are obtained by multiplying the values used in the author's former papers, by 32·2.