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The Beginning
Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to Jewish parents. His father who fought in the first World War and studied at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) worked as an engineer. Although his mother was an heiress to family fortune, she also was a Vassar College graduate who worked as a freelance editor.
https://www.famousscientists.org/thomas-kuhn/ -
First of Many Degrees
After spending his senior year serving as the lead editor of his school's newspaper, a young Thomas Kuhn graduates The Taft School with a developing interest in physics and mathematics. -
College Years
Kuhn attains his bachelor degree in physics(with the highest honor) from Harvard University. Soon after that, he joins a theoretical radar research group in Europe whose sole mission was to make plots against the enemies during the second World War. Three years later he received his master's degree in physics. -
Post-WWII
Kuhn returns from studying under a European royal officer during WWII. Although his interests in physics and mathematics were dwindling, he continued to pursue his career and receive his PhD in physics under the mentoring of the American physicist John Van Vleck. -
Anti-Copernicanism
Kuhn publishes his first book "The Copernican Revolution" in which he gives his critique of Nicolaus Copernicus' theory of heliocentricism.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/ -
California
He is appointed to be a professor of the History of Science at the University of California at Berkeley. There he is introduced to the works theorists such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Paul Feyerabend who influenced him to start writing his most noted work. -
Scientific Revolutions
Kuhn has his most prominent work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he focused on finding a method to studying the history and philosophy of science. He discusses concepts such as "normal science" and "incommensurability". In this book, he also proposes his famous paradigm shift concept which later becomes utilized in all fields of inquiry and not just science. -
New Jersey
He joins Princeton University as a professor of the philosophy and history of science. -
President Kuhn
Kuhn acts as the president of the History of Science Society for a year. -
M.I.T
Kuhn becomes a professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he served until 1991. -
Kuhn strikes tragedy
Kuhn is diagnosed with cancer. -
Legacy of Thomas Samuel Kuhn
Thomas Kuhn passes away due to complications with throat and lung cancer. He left behind a scientific legacy that is still known and relevant in modern science and other fields of knowledge.
