The Peltier Effect, and Contact E.M.F

Abstract

WITHOUT any further reference to the heading of a letter on p. 102, signed “The Reviewer,” I wish to discuss an interesting argument therein propounded as proving that a true electromotive force at contact between two metals cannot be the cause or sole cause of the Peltier effect, unless the latter be simply proportional to absolute temperature. The argument is very like one that I indistinctly remember to have heard suggested some time ago by Prof. Schuster, and it struck me at the time as ingenious and not easily answerable.