Research Methodology - Novel Research Ideas

Generating Novel Research Ideas

Research is a process of exploring the unexplored territories of nature, to understand the intrinsic concepts that govern the existence and functioning of the nature. A researcher is always left clueless of what does the nature has for him in its treasure but makes his consistent research attempts based on his present knowledge. Hence proposing a general methodology for research process is obviously extremely difficult. However intelligent guesses made by intuition based on previous experience and known facts have yielded fruitful results. Although nature seems to be diverged, multiscaled and dynamic, some universal techniques have been developed and being employed by researchers for centuries in researching the complicated nature.

Abstraction:

Owing to the complexity of the nature it is always difficult to understand the natural phenomenon as it is. It is desirable to focus the understanding towards a simplified ideal case considering only the necessary relevant constituents but ignoring the minute details. Coming up with an idealised case without distorting the actual phenomenon but representing the abstract concept behind the phenomenon is termed as abstraction. Obtaining the abstraction of a natural phenomenon demands a greatest intellectual investigation of the phenomenon and is considered to be the best of all the research techniques.

Universality of Nature:

The physical laws that govern the nature is found to be universal with respect to space and time. For example the law that governs the motion of a projectile over the earth’s surface is same as that which governs the motion of galaxies. Similarly, the law which governs one galaxy is same as that which governs another galaxy situated in another part of the universe. Also, the law which governs a galaxy remains unchanged since its origin to this instant. (This implies that the basic constituent of matter is same)

Understanding this universality of nature has left us with some clues which when investigated along with logical reasoning can reveal some of the fundamental facts of nature. For example, let us say the weight of an object is W. Then the weight of an identical object has to be W. The weight of the two objects put together is 2W which reveals the proportional behavior of nature. Such behavior predicted based on simple reasoning is highly useful in understanding nature.

Generalization:

A concept discovered in a system is equally probable to exist in other similar systems belonging to a same group. Sometimes necessary modification of the concept is required to suit different systems of similar nature. For example a concept such as reflection observed in light can be expected to be present in sound as both of them are waves. It should be remembered this generalisation need not apply for all the concepts. For example sound needs a medium to propagate but light does not need one as it is an electromagnetic wave.

Specialization:

Although a problem is formulated for a general case considering a large number of factors, a specific solution to the problem by assuming few of the factors is always preferred. In many cases, a specific solution is either good enough to understand a more general problem or it can provide clues to go about solving the general problem. Moreover a general formulation can have more number of specific solutions.

Asymptotic cases are extreme and ideal cases of a general and real world problem. Such asymptotic solutions are highly useful to understand the range within which the general solution exists.

Superposition:

In a linear system (where proportionality holds good), solution to a complicated problem can be obtained by splitting the problem into a number of independent problems. The solution to the full problem will then be given by the sum of solutions of all the independent problems.

Interpolation:

Knowing the solutions to different cases the solution for a case intermediate to the different cases can be obtained by interpolation of all the solutions.

Extrapolation:

It is also possible to extrapolate the results of a system to a neighboring systems

Classification:

Classification of a system in to a number of constituents helps to discover if there are any missing links.

Analogy:

Results obtained for a system can be used to understand totally a different system belonging to a different discipline, if there exists an analogy between the two systems. More specifically, the mathematics that govern the two systems analogous to each other will be the same.

Analysing experimental data:

The natural events occurring around us can be considered as a natural experiments and hence worth observing critical which reveals lot of concepts which others fail to see.

Discovery by accident/ error experiments:

It is also possible that scientific concepts are discovered accidentally from error experiments.

These are few of the important techniques which have never deceived the researchers and provided them enough enthusiasm to continue.