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Thomas Kuhn Facts

Thomas Kuhn Facts
Thomas Samuel Kuhn (July 18, 1922 to June 17, 1996) was an American physicist, historian, and philosopher of science. In 1962 he published his most famous book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he popularized the term "paradigm shift."
Interesting Thomas Kuhn Facts:
Thomas Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, where his father Samuel Kuhn was an industrial engineer.
In 1940 he graduated from The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut.
In 1943 he earned a B.S. in physics from Harvard University.
He earned his M.S. in 1946 and his PhD in 1949 at Harvard.
Kuhn credits his three years as a Harvard Junior Fellow for his insight into the theory of scientific thought.
From 1948 to 1956 he taught the history of science at Harvard.
He transferred to University of California, Berkeley and taught in both the philosophy and history departments.
Kuhn interviewed Niels Bohr just before Bohr's death.
While he was at Berkeley he published The Structure of Scientific Thought.
In it he introduced the controversial idea that the subjective worldview of the investigator influences and colors his scientific interpretation.
He stated that the history of scientific progress is not linear but that it undergoes periodic revolutions in which a field of study is abruptly transformed.
In 1964 he became the M.Taylor Pyne Professor of Philosophy and History of Science at Princeton University.
From 1979 to 1991 he was the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kuhn's work has had enormous impact in several fields.
In the philosophy of science it expanded the vocabulary to encompass the everyday workings of science.
In sociology, he is a force behind the post Mertonian Sociology of Scientific Knowledge.
He work also influenced the Humanities and was used to distinguish between historical and scientific communities and between political and religious groups.
In 1954 Kuhn became a Guggenheim Fellow.
In 1982 he was given the George Sarton Medal.
In honor of Kuhn, the American Chemical Society awards the Thomas Kuhn Paradigm Shift Award to speakers who present original views which are contrary to current mainstream thought.


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