JEAN

See also:

• CHARLES
• CHARLES (1270-1325)
• CHARLES (1421-1461)
• CHARLES (1525-1574)
• CHARLES (Fr. Charles; Span. Carlos; Ital. Carlo; Ger. Karl; derived from O.H.G. Charal,latinized as Carolus, meaning originally " man ": cf. Mod.Ger., Kerl," fellow," A.S. ceorl, Mod. Eng. " churl ")
• CHARLES (KARL EITEL ZEPHYRIN LUDWIG; in Rum. CAROL)
• CHARLES (c. 1319-1364)
• CHARLES [KARL ALEXANDER] (1712-1780)
• CHARLES, ELIZABETH (1828-1896)
• CHARLES, JACQUES ALEXANDRE CESAR (1746-1823)
• CHARLES, THOMAS (1755-1814)

CHARLES ATHANASE

See also:

• JEAN CHARLES ATHANASE PELTIER (1785-1845)

PELTIER (1785-1845)  , French physicist, was born at Ham (Somme) on the 22nd of February 1785 . He was originally a watchmaker, but retired from business about the age of thirty and devoted himself to experimental and observational science . His papers, which arenumerous, are devoted in great part to atmospheric electricity, waterspouts, cyanometry and polarization of skylight, the temperature of water in the spheroidal state, and the boiling-point at great elevations . There are also a few devoted to curious points of natural history . But his name will always be associated with the thermal effects at junctions in a voltaic circuit . His great experimental discovery, known as the " Peltier effect," was that if a current pass from an external source through a circuit of two metals it cools the junction through which it passes in the same direction as the thermo-electric current which would be caused by directly heating that junction, while it heats the other junction (see THERM0,-ELECTRICITY) . Peltier died in Paris on the 27th of October 1845 .