Article ID: CBB001320450

Is Science Mostly Driven by Ideas or by Tools? (2012)

unapi

Thomas Kuhn was a theoretical physicist before he became a historian. He saw the history of science through the eyes of a theorist. He gave us an accurate view of events in the world of ideas. His favorite word, paradigm, means a system of ideas that dominate the science of a particular place and time. A scientific revolution is a discontinuous shift from one paradigm to another. The shift happens suddenly because new ideas explode with a barrage of new insights and new questions that push old ideas into oblivion. I remember the joy of reading Kuhn's book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, when it first appeared in 1962. It made sense of the relativity and quantum revolutions that had happened just before the theoretical physicists of my generation were born. Those were revolutions led by deep thinkers---Einstein and Heisenberg and Schrödinger and Dirac---who guessed nature's secrets by dreaming dreams of mathematical beauty. Their new paradigms were created out of abstract ideas. In those revolutionary years from 1900 to 1930, ideas led the way to understanding.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001320450/

Similar Citations

Article Gordin, Michael D.; Milam, Erika Lorraine; (2012)
A Repository for More than Anecdote: Fifty Years of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (/isis/citation/CBB001252330/)

Book Kindi, Vasso P.; Arabatzis, Theodore; (2012)
Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Revisited (/isis/citation/CBB001421709/)

Article Seth, Suman; (2007)
Crisis and the Construction of Modern Theoretical Physics (/isis/citation/CBB000771300/)

Chapter Antonino Drago; (2009)
Rivisitando la storia del corpo nero: la falsa coscienza dei fisici (/isis/citation/CBB281610621/)

Article Stöltzner, Michael; (2009)
Gangarten des Rationalen. Zu den Zeitstrukturen der Quantenrevolution (/isis/citation/CBB000932098/)

Book Andersen, Hanne; Barker, Peter; Chen, Xiang; (2006)
The Cognitive Structure of Scientific Revolutions (/isis/citation/CBB000640006/)

Article Sturm, Thomas; Mülberger, Annette; (2012)
Crisis Discussions in Psychology---New Historical and Philosophical Perspectives (/isis/citation/CBB001221625/)

Chapter Silvan S. Schweber; (2016)
On Kuhnian and Hacking-Type Revolutions (/isis/citation/CBB746468868/)

Article Dear, Peter; (2012)
Fifty years of Structure (/isis/citation/CBB001250750/)

Book Alexander Blum; (2016)
Shifting Paradigms: Thomas S. Kuhn and the History of Science (/isis/citation/CBB226022591/)

Article Ruse, Michael; (2014)
Was There a Darwinian Revolution? Yes, No, and Maybe! (/isis/citation/CBB001500023/)

Book Badino, Massimiliano; (2010)
Il professore e il suo demone: La lunga lotta di Max Planck contro la statistica (1896--1906) (/isis/citation/CBB001252424/)

Article Radin Dardashti; (2021)
No-go Theorems: What Are They Good For? (/isis/citation/CBB827243285/)

Book Galina Weinstein; (2015)
Einstein's Pathway to the Special Theory of Relativity (/isis/citation/CBB495363061/)

Chapter Barker, Peter; (2001)
Incommensurability and conceptual change during the Copernican Revolution (/isis/citation/CBB000102728/)

Article Sturm, Thomas; (2012)
Bühler and Popper: Kantian Therapies for the Crisis in Psychology (/isis/citation/CBB001221629/)

Authors & Contributors
Sturm, Thomas
Barker, Peter
Borg, George
Radin Dardashti
Weinstein, Galina
Blum, Alexander
Concepts
Revolutions in science
Philosophy of science
Development of science; change in science
Physics
Theoretical physics
History of science, as a discipline
Time Periods
20th century, early
20th century
20th century, late
19th century
Renaissance
21st century
Places
Germany
United States
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment