The Essential Tension

I’m still reading Kuhn (see also my posts about paradigms and CUEs, software projects, and scientific revolutions), but he was so effective at the beginning of the book in conveying his thesis, so the last few chapters have felt mostly like reiterations. But there are some things which provoke thoughts.

A scientific revolution is when “an older paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by an incompatible new one”. Revolutions are often preceded by crises, and depending on the length of a crisis, a community sometimes switches from “normal science” to “extraordinary science”, which means that rules are bent or abandoned, unconventional procedures are employed, etc., to get the community back on track.

When this happens, scientists sometimes despair. Kuhn quotes Einstein, who in his Autobiographical Notes writes “It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built.” Wolfgang Pauli seemed to be more sensitive, which is revealed in the following two passages, quoted by Kuhn:

At the moment physics is again terribly confused. In any case, it is too difficult for me, and I wish I had been a movie comedian or something of the sort and had never heard of physics

Later, after Werner Heisenberg had published a paper on matrix mechanics:

Heisenberg’s type of mechanics has again given me hope and joy in life. To be sure it does not supply the solution to the riddle, but I believe it is again possible to march forward.

Kuhn writes that scientists, “like artists […] must occasionally be able to live in a world out of joint.” He calls this necessity “the essential tension”. He has written an essay about this, published in The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change. Got to go!