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Born
Cincinnati, Ohio. -
Education, The Taft School
He graduated from The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut. -
Education, Bachelor's Degree
Bachelor's Degree in Physics from Harvard, with the highest distinction, summa cum laude. -
Education, Master's Degree
Master's Degree in Physics from Harvard. -
Married first wife.
Kathryn Muhs with whom he had three children. -
Education, Doctorate
Doctorate in Physics from Harvard. -
Honors, Guggenheim Fellowships.
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since 1925, to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." -
Book,The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought.
This was his first big contribution, which provided a new image of science. With his analysis of the Copernican theories, his documentation of the pre-Ptolemaic/Ptolemaic system and its variants until the eventual acceptance of the Keplerian system, he helped to inaugurate the 1960s historiographic revolution. MLA Citation; Kuhn Thomas S. The Copernican Revolution : Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. Harvard University Press 1957. -
Book,The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
His biggest contribution and one of the most influential works of history and philosophy written in the 20th century. This publication was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science.
MLA Citation; Kuhn, Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel), 1922-1996, author. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. https://youtu.be/L70T4pQv7P8 -
Honors, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He was elected to he American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAA&S), one of the oldest learned societies in the United States.
Membership in the academy is achieved through a thorough petition, review, and election process. -
Honors, The American Philosophical Society.
Elected for the American Philosophical Society (APS),
what "honors extraordinary accomplishments in all fields."
Paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. Concept in the philosophy of science that was introduced into the common lexicon by Kuhn. He restricted the use of the term to the natural sciences, but it has also been used in non-scientific contexts to describe a change in a fundamental model or perception of events. -
Book,The Essential Tension. Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change.
This one was nominated to the National Book Award for Science and is a collection of previously published essays by Kuhn plus 2 unpublished articles and a partly autobiographical preface. These assembled studies shed much light on the early evolution and subsequent reformulations of Kuhn's provocative "The structure of scientific revolutions". MLA Citation; Kuhn, Thomas S. The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change. Germany, University of Chicago Press, 2011. -
Book, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912.
This book is another contribution to the philosophy of science with his examination to the development of quantum mechanics. MLA Citation; Kuhn, Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel), 1922-1996. Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. -
Honors, National Academy of Sciences.
Members of this organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Election to the National Academy is one of the highest honors in the scientific field. Members of the National Academy of Sciences serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation" on science, engineering, and medicine. The group holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code. -
Married second wife.
Jehane Barton Burns (Jehane B. Kuhn). -
Award, The George Sarton Medal.
The most prestigious award given by the History of Science Society. Awarded to an historian of science from the international community who became distinguished for "a lifetime of scholarly achievement" in the field. Kuhn introduced the idea of incommensurability to the philosophy of science. Concept that came from mathematics; in its original sense, defined as the absence of a common unit of measurement that would allow a direct and exact measurement of two variables. -
Disease, Lung Cancer.
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Died
At the age of 73 he died in Cambridge, Massachusetts.