Seebeck was born in Reval (today Tallinn) to a wealthy Baltic German merchant family.

During his experiments, he observed that a junction of dissimilar metals produces a deflexion on a magnetic needle (compass) when exposed to a temperature gradient.

Because Ørsted had discovered that an electric current produces a deflexion on a compass transversal to the wire, Seebeck's results were interpreted as a thermoelectric effect.

Based on this result, Seebeck elaborated a table relating different metal junctions and the deflection of the compass.

Ørsted, Seebeck, Ritter and some German chemists and physicists believed on the polarity and looked for a relationship among different forces of Nature, like electricity, magnetism, heat, light and chemical reactions.

After the discovery of the electron and its fundamental charge, it was quickly realized that Seebeck's effect was an electric current that is induced, which by Ampere's law deflects the magnet.

In 1810, at Jena, Seebeck described the action of light on silver chloride sensitised paper (a technique used by Johann Ritter).

[7] The experiment could not be preserved because he could not fix the silver chloride to prevent its further reaction to light, though Hannavy reports that "in a spectrum attributed to Seebeck in a private collection the purple and violet currently remain visible," albeit weakly.

[7] He corresponded with J. W. Goethe who was writing on the Theory of Colours (Zur Farbenlehre) and who included Seebeck's discovery as an appendix.