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Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was recognized as one of the foremost historians of science in the 20th century. He changed the way we thing about scientific revolutions.
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After his first position as a professor, Kuhn concentrated on the history of science. He focused on eighteenth century matter theory and early history of thermodynamics then to the history of astronomy. This all led him to publish his first book, The Copernican Revolution. This book details the happenings in the Copernican Revolution laying events out in sequential order.
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According to Kuhn, normal science is driven by adherence to a 'paradigm.' A paradigm is a way in which we conduct science, the processes we take and the rules we follow. Anomalies arise when distrust occurs in the paradigm and these anomalies can create a crisis where a rival paradigm supersedes the existing one. https://youtu.be/tasVTgZc9Gw
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According to Kuhn, the development of science is not uniform, but in fact has alternating 'normal' and 'revolutionary' phases. These phases are not periods of accelerated knowledge, but differ qualitatively from normal science. Normal science does resemble scientific progress, on the surface. Revolutionary science involve a revision to existing scientific belief or practice.
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Kuhn turned his work to the early history of quantum theory in the 1960s. He created the book, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity which argues about the energies that a particle can posses.
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Thomas Kuhn left us with the knowledge that scientific thinking is not set in stone. We should always question and challenge a certain way of thinking, or a paradigm, in order to keep the discoveries of science flowing.
