Thomas Johann Seebeck
German physicist
Died when: 61 years 245 days (740 months)Star Sign: Aries
Thomas Johann Seebeck (German: [ˈtoːmas ˈjoːhan ˈzeːbɛk]; 9 April 1770 – 10 December 1831) was a Baltic German physicist, who, in 1822, observed a relationship between heat and magnetism.
Later, in 1823, Ørsted called this phenomenon thermoelectric effect.Seebeck was born in Reval (today Tallinn) to a wealthy Baltic German merchant family.
He received a medical degree in 1802 from the University of Göttingen, but preferred to study physics.From 1821 to 1823, Seebeck performed a series of experiments trying to understand Ørsted's findings from 1820.
During his experiments, he observed that a junction of dissimilar metals produces a deflexion on a magnetic needle (compass) when exposed to a temperature gradient.
Because Ørsted had discovered that an electric current produces a deflexion on a compass transversal to the wire, Seebeck's results were interpreted as a thermoelectric effect.
This is now called the Peltier–Seebeck effect and is the basis of thermocouples and thermopiles.
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