Drops of Dew

My idea of research

  There are three distinct approaches to research in any field. The first is
  theory. The business of people employing themselves in the marvels of natural
  laws is discovery. They discover laws of nature and math. Yes, I think a lot of
  high math is discovered, not invented. This brings me to the second type of
  research - that concerned with looking at a narrow domain of application -
  drawing from some real life problem and trying to learn from the abundance of
  knowledge discovered by the first kind. The order of the day here is invention.
  Inventions need not be physical, nor does it mean a mixing and matching of ideas
  - people in this category understand all that the first conjure and then adapt
  these ideas and use them to find simpler, less general theories to solve their
  own problems. The boundary between these two groups is sometimes blurred but it
  exists if looked closely enough. Although it is always the dream of the inventor
  to generalize his inventions to principles applicable in more and all fields
  beyond his own, he often only finds a more general principle akin to his in some
  obscure mathematics journal. But he isn't lost on this finding, because the
  mathematician neither cared nor expressed his ideas in a useful form. And when
  the inventor finds his ideas already etched in the dusty columns of a library in
  Russia, he draws on the existing theory and says it all in his own language -
  here again he invents. What was obscure symbols and symbolism steeped in
  tradition suddenly becomes patents and systems that solve problems. He, then, is
  the scientific engineer. Finally, the third category is that of the
  experimentalist and research clients. These people verify, validate and put to
  use the hair-brained ideas of the first two categories. In some fields the value
  of this sect of people can not be overstated, in others they barely exist. I
  would go so far as to say that the concentration of category three people is one
  of the indicators of the maturity of research in an area - too few of them imply
  an immature field while too many of them reek of decadence.

  I'm sure you can guess what category I rest in.