Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem (10 June 1861 – 14 September 1916) was a French physicist and philosopher of science, best known for his writings on the indeterminacy of experimental criteria and on scientific development in the Middle Ages.
At 11 he entered the College Stanislavs and in 1884 he published his first paper which was on electrochemical cells.
Duhem's views on the philosophy of science are explicated in his famous book: "La the'orie physique: son objet et sa structure". In this work he refuted the inductivist claim that Newton's laws can be deduced from those Kepler. His name is given to the Quine-Duhem thesis, which holds that for any given set of observations there are an innumerably large number of explanations. Thus empirical evidence cannot force the revision of a theory.
It should be cleared up, however, that as popular as the Duhem-Quine thesis may be in the philosophy of science, in reality Pierre Duhem and Willard Van Orman Quine stated very different theses. Pierre Duhem believed that only in the field of Physics we cannot refute a single individual hypothesis, but a whole theoretical group. He says in no uncertain terms that experimental theory in Physics is not the same as in the case of fields like physiology and certain branches of chemistry.
Also Duhem's conception of theoretical group has its limits, since not all concepts are connected to each other logically. He did not include at all a priori disciplines such as logic and mathematics within these theoretical groups in Physics which can be tested experimentally. Quine, on the other hand, conceived this theoretical group as a unit of a whole human knowledge. Even mathematics and logic can be revised in light of recalcitrant experience, a statement that Duhem never held.
History of Science:
Duhem is well known for his ground-breaking work on the history of science, which resulted in the ten volume: "Le syste`me du monde: histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon a` Copernic". Unlike many former historians ( e.g. Voltaire and Condorcet), who denigrated the Middle Ages, he endeavored to show that the Catholic Church had helped foster Western science in one of its most fruitful periods. His work in this field was originally prompted by his research into the origins of statics, where he encountered the works of medieval mathematicians and philosophers such as Nicole Oresme (Nicole Oresme, a prominent medieval scholar. Duhem came to regard the medieval scholastic tradition as the origin of modern science ) and Roger Bacon, whose sophistication surprised him. He consequently came to regard them as the founders of modern science, having in his view anticipated many of the discoveries of Galileo and later thinkers. Duhem concluded that "the mechanics and physics of which modern times are justifiably proud to proceed, by an uninterrupted series of scarcely perceptible improvements, from doctrines professed in the heart of the medieval schools."
Other works:
Duhem is also known for his work in thermodynamics, being in part responsible for the development of what is known as the Gibbs-Duhem relation.

Duhem coined the very term THERMODYNAMIC POTENTIALS.

Selected Bibliography of Pierre DUHEM:

* Les the'ories de la chaleur (1895)
* Le mixte et la combinaison chimique. Essai sur l'e'volution d'une ide'e (1902)
* L'e'volution de la me'canique (1902)
* Les origines de la statique (1903)
* La the'orie physique son objet et sa structure (1906)
* E'tudes sur Le'onard de Vinci. Paris, F. De Nobele, 1906-13; 1955. 3 v. 1. se'r.
I. Albert de Saxe et Le'onard de Vinci.
II. Le'onard de Vinci et Villalpand.
III. Le'onard de Vinci et Bernardino Baldi.
IV. Bernardino Baldi, Roberval dt Descartes. V. The'mon le fils du juif et Le'onard de Vinci.
VI. Le'onard de Vinci, Cardan et Bernard Palissy. VII. La scientia de ponderibus et Le'onard de Vinci.
VIII. Albert de Saxe. 2. se'r.
IX. Le'onard de Vinci et les deux infinis.
X. Le'onard de Vinci et la pluralite' des mondes.
XI. Nicolas de Cues et Le'onard de Vinci.
XII. Le'onard de Vinci et les origines de la ge'ologie. 3. se'r. Les pre'curseurs parisiens de Galile'e:
XIII. Jean I. Buridan (de Be'thune) et Le'onard de Vinci.
XIV. Le tradition de Buridan et la science italienne au XVIe siecle.
XV. Dominique Soto et la scolastique parisienne. * Sozein ta phainomena. Essai sur la Notion de The'orie physique de Platon a` Galile'e (1908)
* Traite' de l'e'nerge'tique (1911)
* Le Syste`me du Monde. Histoire des Doctrines cosmologiques de Platon a` Copernic, 10 vols., (1913—1959)

There are a few places where the biography of Pierre DUHEM can be found.

Wikipedia electronic Encyclopedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/) , an article Pierre DUHEM.

The best Biography is written by:

Stanley L. JAKI, UNEASY GENIUS: The Life and Work of PIERRE DUHEM,
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (KLUWER Group) Boston, 1984.