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Early Life
Thomas Samuel Khun was born on July 18, 1922, in Cincinnati, OH. Throughout childhood, he attended private schools, where he learned of his love for mathematics. -
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Education
From 1943-1949, Kuhn attended Harvard college for his BSc, MSc, and PhD in physics. During his academic years, he became a Harvard Junior Fellow, which paved the way for him to explore the history and philosophy of science. -
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Teaching
Kuhn began teaching courses at many universities: Harvard, University of California Berkeley, Princeton University, and MIT. At all these universities, he taught the history and philosophy of science, passing his knowledge down to the next generation of philosophers. During his time at Berkeley, he spoke to Niels Bohr, famous for his work, the Bohr model of the atom. -
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Awards and Honors
1954 - named a Guggenheim Fellow
1963 - American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1974 - National Academy of Sciences
1982 - George Sarton Medal
The American Chemical Society awards the Thomas Kuhn Paradigm Shift Award to a winner who presents an original viewpoint and how it can impact scientific understanding. -
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
After interviewing with Niels Bohr, Thomas Kuhn wrote his famous book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (SSR). In his book, he studies the changes that scientific revolutions are evolving. From the geocentric to heliocentric solar systems debate, he notes that science isn't just the addition of new knowledge, but that the new idea takes over and sent the new baseline - a paradigm shift. -
Paradigm Shift
Thomas Khun was best known for his concept of paradigm shifts or in simpler terms, a scientific revolution. There are 4 steps that occur in a shift: pre-paradigm, paradigm, crisis, and crisis resolution. Once the old theory is questioned, a new one begins to develop. After a new idea is created, the old one is rejected. The new paradigm takes over and resolves the crisis that the original one could not. https://youtu.be/6kuUGr8nMao -
Death
Thomas Khun passed away at the age of 73 in 1996. In his personal life, he married his first wife, whom he had three children with, before divorcing and marrying his second wife. Two years before his passing, he was diagnosed with lung cancer.