National Catholic Register: Vindicated. The Courageous Man Who Saw How Faith Gave Birth to Science
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Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem was born June 10, 1861, in Paris. He distinguished himself as one of the most brilliant students ever to attend the highly prestigious Ecole Normal Supérieure. Of the 800 or so graduates in France in 1882, he was and remained throughout his years at Ecole, first in his class in the science department. His doctoral thesis on thermodynamics, unfortunately, contradicted the position of the chemist Marcelin Berthelot, who was a powerful figure in the French academic establishment at the time.
Though Duhem’s position was later vindicated, Bertholet ensured not only that the thesis would be rejected, but that Duhem would never teach in Paris. Duhem wrote another thesis, of a more mathematical nature, that three examiners accepted. But his career was permanently hampered as a result of his clash with Bertholet.
Duhem, ostracized by his own peers, never did teach in Paris. He spent the last 22 years of his life as a professor of theoretical physics at a provincial school, the University of Bordeaux. His magnum opus is his Le Système du monde: les doctrines cosmolologiques de Platon à Copernicus (The Structure of the World: Teachings on Cosmology from Plato to Copernicus).
This is an incredible story of a brilliant man. It is a MUST read!
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