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Birth
Thomas Kuhn was born to Samuel Kuhn and Minette Stroock Kuhn in Cincinnati Ohio. His parents were both Jewish and his father was an industrial engineer. -
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Education
Kuhn was educated in private, progressive school from kindergarten to graduation. These school stressed independent thought over studies and learning facts. This likely contributed to the development of his ability to critically analyze and study how we gain knowledge in the scientific fields. -
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University
Kuhn earned his Ph.D in Physics at Harvard University in 1949. During his time there, he switched interests from Physics to the History and Philosophy of Science, teaching a course in the History of Science from 1948-1956. He then left Harvard to teach at Berkley, where he was named Professor of the History of Science. In addition, he interview and taped Neils Bohr the day before he died in 1962. -
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Initially printed as an article in the "International Encyclopedia of Unified Science", Thomas Kuhn's writings on Scientific Revolutions argue that science is not a linear accumulation of knowledge, but instead consists of paradigms that serve as a perspective that is built upon. As more is discovered, problems arise in the paradigm which lead to a crisis. This crisis results in a paradigm shift, with the new replacing the old in a relatively short revolution. -
Death
Kuhn continued to work within the field of the History of Science, working at MIT for the latter part of his life. He shifted his focus away from the concept of paradigm shifts as the scientific community debated back and forth on his interpretation of scientific history. In 1994 he was diagnosed with lung cancer and two years later, died in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The University of Chicago Press, 2015.