Willy Nilly and Millie Farad have a problem.  They have a 12 v source and they need a six volt source.  They have decided to use a voltage divider with R_a = R_b.    Actually, both of those resistances are 100 W in the voltage divider circuit below.

        The problem they have is to determine how much current is dissipated by the source when they have a load of 50 W attached to the 6 volt divider output.  Here is the voltage divider.

Here is the Thevenin equivalent.

        Willy says you can't use the TEC to compute how much power is dissipated.  Millie says you can.  Here's what you should do.

• Determine that the output is really 6 v.
• Determine the TEC for the divider.
• Compute the power dissipated by R_a and R_b in the actual divider.
• Compute the power that would be dissipated in the TEC.
• Determine if Willy has finally had a correct insight.