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Birth of Thomas Kuhn
Born on July 18th, 1922 in Cincinnati, Ohio. -
Kuhn completes his PhD
Thomas Kuhn completed his Bachelors and masters degrees at Harvard in physics. He obtained his phD in 1949 in the history of science. During his time there he was also elected to the Society of Fellows at Harvard. -
The Copernican Revolution!
While teaching undergraduate courses he also began to focus on eighteenth century scientific theory and the history of astronomy. In 1957 he would publish his first book called "The Copernican Revolution". In his first book compares the stark contrast between Newtons physics/Copernicus's heliocentric ideologies vs Aristotle's concepts that preceded them. Kuhn had a unique way of quantifying changes in the scientific landscape. see link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGr1nHdzLyk -
Kuhn Publishes "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"
He describes a paradigm shift as a big change how we go about conducting science. There were four phases; the first called “normal science” which is where initial experimentation begins to occur. Phase 2 is “model crisis” which is where unexplained issues in a theory begin to reveal themselves. Phase 3 is “The Model Revolution” and this is where a new concept to explain the unexplained. Phase 4 the “scientific revolution”. This is where the new theory becomes accepted. -
Collection of scientific essays
Kuhn's influence grew beyond just the philosophy of science. His idea of paradigm shifts influenced a wide array of scientific disciplines from sociology, chemistry, to even economics as well. Kuhn further pushed to envelope by publishing a series of scientific essays "The essential tension" and "Quantum Discontinuity" (1978) See attached video further highlighting impact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn8cCDtVd5w -
Death of Thomas Kuhn
Before his death, Thomas Kuhn left an indelible impact on science. Kuhn argued that instead of slow, gradual growth towards the truth,that we instead remain constant before going through a paradigm shift to explain a previously unexplained phenomenon. The scientific evolution occurs when the new paradigm better encompasses the observations and is closer to the objective. This has been applied to countless disciplines and the scientific community simply wouldn't be the same without Kuhn.
