The Homogeneous Electro-Thermic Effect (Including the Thomson Effect as a Special Case)

Abstract

THE Swedish Academy is issuing in English a series of memoirs on scientific subjects in order to make the work of Swedish men of science more widely known, and the volume under notice is the fifth to be issued. It deals with the transport of heat along a conductor through which an electric current is passing, and the author concludes from his measurements that there is, in addition to the Kelvin effect, a further flow of heat with or against the electric current even when the conductor is homogeneous and originally at a uniform temperature. His measurements are in general made on long cylinders, the centre of each being turned down to a narrow neck. The electric current through the neck causes a transport of heat to one or other side of the neck, and the difference of temperature of the two sides is measured by thermo-junctions. This difference does not vary with the magnitude of the electric current according to the same law as the Kelvin effect, nor is it always of the same sign as the latter. The author proposes to call this new effect “the homogeneous electro-thermic effect.”