225px thomas kuhn portrait

Thomas Samuel Kuhn

By AdamCtverak

  • Birth

    Birth
    Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born on July 18th, 1922 in Ohio. Both of his parents, Samuel L. Kuhn, an industrial engineer, and Minette Stroock Kuhn, were Jewish.

  • High School

    High School
    He discovered his passion for mathematics and physics already in high school, which he graduated from in 1940.

  • Harvard University

    Harvard University
    Kuhn’s career in science began with physics. He earned his bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and Ph.D. in physics in 1943, 1946 and 1949, respectively, from Harvard University. His doctorate studies were focused on an application of quantum mechanics to solid state physics. The switch in his career from physics to history and philosophy of science happened during his membership in Harvard Society of Fellows, which, as he stated in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970), was crucial...
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    Professorship

    After leaving Harvard, he taught history and philosophy of science at University of California, Berkley from 1956 to 1964. He also taught at Princeton University from 1964 to 1979 and MIT from 1979 to 1991.

  • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

    The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
    In 1962 Kuhn’s magnum opus, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), was published. This rather a controversial book turned around the way the scientific community perceived scientific progress. It represents a milestone in epistemology. In his book, Kuhn introduces an idea that science repeatedly goes through two stages. First, normal science takes place. A paradigm has a central position in normal science. A paradigm is a...
    Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzo8vnxSARg&t=272s

  • Death

    Death
    In 1994 Kuhn was diagnosed with lung cancer and died on June 17th, 1996. His intellectual legacy will contribute to the scientific community for centuries.