The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, the Copernican Revolution by Thomas S. Kuhn


The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, the Copernican Revolution
Title : The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, the Copernican Revolution
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ISBN : 1156917506
ISBN-10 : 9781156917503
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 26
Publication : First published May 25, 2010

This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, the Copernican Revolution. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), by Thomas Kuhn, is an analysis of the history of science. Its publication was a landmark event in the sociology of scientific knowledge, and popularized the terms paradigm and paradigm shift. The work was first published as a monograph in the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, then as a book by University of Chicago Press in 1962. (All page numbers below refer to the third edition of the text, published in 1996). In 1969, Kuhn added a postscript to the book in which he replied to critical responses to the first edition of the book. Kuhn dated the genesis of his book to 1947, when he was a graduate student at Harvard University and had been asked to teach a science class for humanities undergraduates with a focus on historical case studies. Kuhn later commented that until then, "I'd never read an old document in science." Aristotle's Physics was astonishingly unlike Isaac Newton's work in its concepts of matter and motion. Kuhn concluded that Aristotle's concepts were not "bad Newton," just different. Kuhn's approach to the history and philosophy of science has been described as focusing on conceptual issues: what sorts of ideas were thinkable at a particular time? What sorts of intellectual options and strategies were available to people during a given period? What types of lexicons and terminology were known and employed during certain epochs? Stressing the importance of not attributing modern modes of thought to historical actors, Kuhn's book argues that the evolution of scientific theory does not emerge from...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=31500

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, the Copernican Revolution Reviews

  • Nooilforpacifists

    No only a difficult read, but largely wrong. I'm a "Popperite"--an experimentalist. Advances in science normally come slowly and carefully, exceptions Kuhn cites such as Copernicus and Newton notwithstanding. Mostly, science is hypothesis, testing, checking r(squared), reformulating hypothesis, and so on. Paradigm shifts are as rare as Einstein and Bohr.

    It may be no coincidence that the generation weaned on Kuhn went on to predict "hockey stick" global warming, when actual temp measurements consistently are recorded below that predicted by "warmists'" fantastically complicated models. Who ya gonna believe--that black-box software, or your own eyes? Too late to ask Kuhn.

  • Bibhu Ashish

    This one proved very difficult for me to complete and I had to refer various outside notes to complete the book and understand what the author was trying to point out. I was glad that I stuck to the book till the end without feeling disenchanted in the middle with the author's way of writing. And my reward for dong that was, I got to know the core concept which the author wanted to convey and that is "How a new paradigm is formed and accepted in the society". The author has taken few of the great inventions and discoveries from the scientific world to prove his point and I think he has more than succeeded in doing that.

    I think I would again go back to the book sometimes in future and may be I would get another perspective when I reread this great book.People who don't like books on Science and Maths and people who have an abhorrence for long winded sentences should not pick this book. This book will prove to be a boring book for you. But for me it was an interesting read and proved to be a great source for my grey matter.