Thomas Samuel Kuhn (Kuhn Thomas Samuel)

(1922-1996)
Born July 18, 1922 in Cincinnati (pc. Ohio). He studied theoretical physics at Harvard University, where in 1949 he defended his doctoral dissertation. Taught since 1949 at Harvard, from 1957 - at Princeton. From 1968 to 1979 - Professor at Princeton University, and from 1979 until his retirement in 1991 - professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Kuhn died in Cambridge (ea. Massachusetts), June 17, 1996.
Celebrity Kuhn brought the second of the books he had written - Structure of Scientific Revolutions (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962). Her ideas were born in the period of teaching at Harvard, where the author researched the origins of the theoretical mechanics 17. Kuhn found that the physics of Aristotle was not at the preparatory phase for the physics of Galileo and Newton. If the mechanics of 17. understand the movement solely in terms of mass and strength, in the Aristotelian tradition, the movement is considered as a qualitative change in the state of a moving object. Analyzing the revolution in science, Kuhn demonstrates that the history of science was not a linear process of accumulation of knowledge, but rather as alternating periods of 'normal science' and denies its 'revolutionary science'. So, . Aristotelian physics functioned as a model ( 'paradigm') of normal science from classical antiquity to the late Middle Ages, during this period, she asked the conceptual tools and the basic direction of scientific inquiry,
. Physical and mathematical discoveries on 16 and 17 centuries. Associated with the names of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes and Newton, the scientific revolution created a situation in which supporters of the old paradigm are faced with the adherents of 'new science'. The period of normal science again came only in the late 17 century. Where Newtonian physics has gained wide acceptance among scholars and has established itself as a paradigm of scientific research.

While critics of Kuhn's work initially focused on the concept of paradigm, the highest discussion called another of his thesis - on the incommensurability of scientific theories. Supporters of Carnap and logical positivism sees science as a process of nomination and critical inspection (verification) claims; followers of Popper's procedure is not considered a key verification and falsification (refutation) of scientific hypotheses. But they both proceeded from the notion of science as a process of accumulation of knowledge: Aristotle and medieval physics were regarded as a partial understanding of reality, later supplemented by a new science. Kong also insisted that the teachings of Aristotle and Newton are two incompatible systems of knowledge.

Among other significant works by Kuna Essential voltage (The Essential Tension, 1977) and the monograph Theory of a black body and the quantum discontinuity, 1894-1912 (Black-Body Theory and Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912, 1978).