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Thomas Samuel Kuhn
Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born on July 18, 1922 and passed away on June 17, 1996. He was one of the most influential philosophers of science in the 20th century. -
Schooling
Thomas Kuhn got his bachelors in 1943 and his masters degree in 1946. He studied physics at the Harvard University. He got his Ph.D. in 1949 in the history of science.
After he finished school he taught at Harvard from 1951-1956, and then at the University of California from 1956-1964, then at Princeton from 1864-1979, and then at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1979-1991. -
First Book; The Copernican Revolution
In 1957 Kuhn published his first book, The Copernican Revolution. This book was inspired by his work when he began studying the history of astronomy. His work was focused on 18th century matter theory and the early history of thermodynamics. Thomas Kuhn was fascinated by Aristotle's work which his why he began studying further into it. Cosmos magazine describes Kuhns first book as it, "examines the development of the heliocentric theory of the solar system during the Renaissance" (Glorfeld). -
The Kuhn Cycle
In 1962, Kuhn published his second book which was called, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In this book Kuhn talked about his concept known as the paradigm shift. Paradigm shifts were hard for people to wrap their heads around because it was taking something that most people didn't think was real and proving it using the scientific method. His theory stated, "science does not develop according to a set pattern, but has alternating 'normal' and 'revolutionary' phases" (Glorfeld).