Thermoelectricity: Thomson vs Onsager, with advice from Maxwell

This paper deals with the long-standing conflict between interpretations of thermoelectricity based on original reversible thermodynamics Thomson and later irreversible Onsager. It is shown that, by a slight modification Maxwellian relaxation treated in previous [J. Goddard K. Kamrin, “Dissipation potentials from elastic collapse,” Proc. R. Soc. A 475, 20190144 (2019)], Onsager's symmetry simply reflection underlying equilibrium thermodynamics. also that modern interpretation Thomson's thermodynamics, as given recently present author, reveals to be analog fluid-mechanical transport process limit thermodynamic corresponding convection-dominated regime large Péclet number.