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Birth
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1871 First attends college
At the age of eleven Pierre Duhem attended Collège Stanislas where he studied Latin, Greek, science and mathematics. During this time the Paris Commune had ruled France for three months after the Franco-Prussian War his family was constantly moving trying to get out of the path of the war. A year later two of his siblings would die from diphtheria. For the next ten years Duhem attended a catholic school. Duhem called these early years of his education formative on his development. -
Enters Higher Education and is socially rejected
In 1882 Duhem enrolled into the higher education institution Ecole Normale to study Pure Scientific, which did not fit the educational paths his parents wanted him to take. During his time at Ecole Normale he submitted his thesis on thermodynamic potential that criticized and corrected a past thesis by Marcellin Berthelot, it is thought that Berhelot used his social influence to get Duhems thesis rejected.his rejection of Berhelot thesis would be able to spread. -
Period: to
Teacher
Pierre Duham began teaching in 1887 at Lille and taught hydrodynamics, elasticity, and acoustics. Duhem would be moved multiple times do to his inability to handle conflicts well and create friendships in the science community. In the early 1900s Duhem was offered a position to teach the history of Science in Paris France but would reject it since he was a man of physics. -
The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1914)
In The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1914) Pierre Duhem says that " it is impossible to subject an isolated single hypothesis to an experimental test." which could have pushed ideas like Karl Poppers Falsification theory. -
Contributing to History of Science
Though Pierre Duhem said he was a man of Physics and did not want to accept a position teaching the history of science towards the end of his career he began to explore it. He explored time periods like the 1200 that were though of times that no one contributed to science. He wrote about mathematicians, philosophers and astrologist he believed gave birth to the start of modern science. Though his work was criticized for it having religious motivation. -
Death
14 September 1916 in Cabrespine, France -
video and Citations
Video on Thermo Dynamics that Pierre Duhems first thesis was on https://b2b.partcommunity.com/community/knowledge/en/detail/9267/Thermodynamics Sack, Harald. “Pierre Duhem and the Role of Theory in Science.” SciHi Blog, 10 June 2019, scihi.org/pierre-duhem-theory-science/. Ariew, Roger. “Pierre Duhem.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 26 July 2018, plato.stanford.edu/entries/duhem/.