Tech University Institute Named After Thomas Seebeck
At its February 15 meeting, the Council of Tallinn University of Technology passed a motion to name its electronics institute after 19th-century scientist Thomas Johann Seebeck.
Naming the university's institute after a Baltic German can be interpreted as a sign of the nation's growing acceptance of its entire cultural heritage, a move that has been hindered in the past by political rifts.
Seebeck (1770-1831) was born in Tallinn and attended what is now the Gustav Adolf upper secondary school. He was the discoverer, in 1820, of the thermoelectric effect referred to as the Seebeck effect, by which temperature differences in a loop of two metals or semiconductors will create a continuous electrical current.
His discoveries have been widely applied in semiconductor electronics and space engineering. The Tallinn University of Technology has also researched and based several applications on the phenomenon of photoelasiticity that Seebeck described in 1813.
In 21st-century science, the Seebeck effect has been employed in University of California research into organic molecular circuits, and in Japan, where the Keio University is developing computer technology that exploits electron spin.