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peltier effect

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Peltier effect

[pel-tyey]
–noun Physics.
the change in temperature of either junction of a thermocouple when a current is maintained in the thermocouple and after allowance is made for a temperature change due to resistance.

Origin:
1855–60; named after Jean C. A. Peltier (1785–1845), French physicist who discovered it
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Peltier effect

the cooling of one junction and the heating of the other when electric current is maintained in a circuit of material consisting of two dissimilar conductors; the effect is even stronger in circuits containing dissimilar semiconductors. In a circuit consisting of a battery joined by two pieces of copper wire to a length of bismuth wire, a temperature rise occurs at the junction where the current passes from copper to bismuth, and a temperature drop occurs at the junction where the current passes from bismuth to copper. This effect was discovered in 1834 by the French physicist Jean-Charles-Athanase Peltier

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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