MASTERY QUIZ

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Test your knowledge with 45 questions across 3 challenge tiers

Based on the book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn

🥉 Fundamentals

🥈 Deep Dive

🥇 Expert

Paradigm

A set of shared beliefs methods and standards that define a scientific community and its practices

Example

Newtonian physics was a paradigm that defined how scientists understood motion and gravity

Normal Science

The routine puzzle-solving activity that scientists engage in under an accepted paradigm

Example

Most scientific work is normal science – extending and articulating the dominant paradigm

Anomaly

An observation or result that cannot be explained within the current paradigm

Example

The orbit of Mercury was an anomaly for Newtonian physics later explained by relativity

Crisis

The period when accumulated anomalies undermine confidence in the current paradigm

Example

Before scientific revolutions fields experience crisis as problems multiply

Scientific Revolution

A dramatic shift from one paradigm to another transforming how a field understands its subject

Example

The shift from Ptolemaic to Copernican astronomy was a scientific revolution

Paradigm Shift

The transformation that occurs when a scientific community adopts a new paradigm

Example

The quantum revolution represented a paradigm shift in physics

Incommensurability

The difficulty or impossibility of directly comparing theories from different paradigms

Example

Scientists in different paradigms may literally see the world differently

Puzzle-solving

The primary activity of normal science working within paradigm constraints

Example

Scientists solve puzzles posed by the paradigm rather than questioning fundamentals

Exemplar

A concrete puzzle-solution that serves as a model for future problem-solving

Example

Newtons solution to planetary motion became an exemplar for mechanical physics

Disciplinary Matrix

The entire constellation of beliefs values and techniques shared by a scientific community

Example

The disciplinary matrix includes not just theory but methods instruments and standards

Gestalt Switch

The sudden perceptual reorganization that occurs when adopting a new paradigm

Example

Scientists adopting a new paradigm may experience a gestalt switch seeing data differently

Textbook Science

The presentation of science as cumulative progress that obscures revolutionary discontinuities

Example

Textbooks present smooth progress hiding the revolutionary breaks that actually occurred

Fundamentals

TIER 1 • READER BADGE

10 Questions ~5 min 80% to pass

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Deep Dive

TIER 2 • SCHOLAR BADGE

15 Questions ~10 min 80% to pass

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Expert

TIER 3 • MASTER BADGE

20 Questions ~15 min 85% to pass

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