This paper deals with the long-standing conflict between interpretations of thermoelectricity based on the original reversible thermodynamics of Thomson and the later irreversible thermodynamics of Onsager. It is shown that, by a slight modification of the Maxwellian relaxation treated in a previous paper [J. Goddard and K. Kamrin, “Dissipation potentials from elastic collapse,” Proc. R. Soc. A 475, 20190144 (2019)], Onsager's symmetry is simply a reflection of the underlying symmetry of equilibrium thermodynamics. It is also shown that a modern interpretation of Thomson's thermodynamics, as given recently by the present author, reveals thermoelectricity to be the analog of a fluid-mechanical transport process with the limit of thermodynamic equilibrium corresponding to the convection-dominated regime of large Péclet number.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
December 2021
Research Article|
December 28 2021
Thermoelectricity: Thomson vs Onsager, with advice from Maxwell
Special Collection:
Celebration of Robert Byron Bird (1924-2020)
J. D. Goddard
J. D. Goddard
a)
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering University of California
, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093-0411, USA
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: djgoddard@ucsd.edu
Search for other works by this author on:
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: djgoddard@ucsd.edu
Note: This paper is part of the special topic, Celebration of Robert Byron Bird (1924-2020).
Physics of Fluids 33, 127123 (2021)
Article history
Received:
October 31 2021
Accepted:
December 05 2021
Citation
J. D. Goddard; Thermoelectricity: Thomson vs Onsager, with advice from Maxwell. Physics of Fluids 1 December 2021; 33 (12): 127123. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0077227
Download citation file:
Sign in
Don't already have an account? Register
Sign In
You could not be signed in. Please check your credentials and make sure you have an active account and try again.
Pay-Per-View Access
$40.00
Citing articles via
Hidden turbulence in van Gogh's The Starry Night
Yinxiang Ma (马寅翔), 马寅翔, et al.
On Oreology, the fracture and flow of “milk's favorite cookie®”
Crystal E. Owens, Max R. Fan (范瑞), et al.
Fluid–structure interaction on vibrating square prisms considering interference effects
Zengshun Chen (陈增顺), 陈增顺, et al.
Related Content
Translocation of a daughter vesicle in a model system of self-reproducing vesicles
Physics of Fluids (February 2024)
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics of light-induced transport phenomena in a binary gas mixture
Physics of Fluids (December 2021)
Birthing of a daughter vesicle in a model system for self-reproduction vesicles
Physics of Fluids (July 2021)
Energy stable and mass conservative numerical method for a generalized hydrodynamic phase-field model with different densities
Physics of Fluids (November 2020)
Thermodynamically admissible boundary conditions for the regularized 13 moment equations
Physics of Fluids (February 2016)