Thomas Johann Seebeck (9.04.1770- 10.12.1831) was a German physicist and a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences (1814). He was born in Reval (now Tallinn). He studied at the Universities of Berlin and Göttingen, and at the latter he received the degree of doctor in 1802. He worked in Jena and, in the 1820s, in Berlin.
His work concerned electricity, magnetism and optics. In 1821 he discovered the phenomenon of thermoelectricity (in a copper–bismuth pair), built a thermocouple and used it to measure temperature. He was the first to use iron filings to determine the shape of the lines of force of a magnetic field. He studied the magnetic action of a current, chromatic polarisation and the distribution of heat in the prismatic spectrum. He detected the polarising properties of tourmaline (1813). He rediscovered infrared rays, circular polarisation and the magnetisation of iron and steel near a conductor carrying a current.
A member of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1825).