Research Work: Accidental, Repetitive or Fundamental?

Eminent educators, as well as common people, often question why most of the research work is somewhat repetitive and there are very few options for fundamental research in developing science. So, the elementary question is, “what is fundamental research?”. Scientific research is driven by an extension of previous research. If we demask the word ‘research’, i.e., ‘further searching’, it obviously leads to repetitive work. But this repetitive work must be driven by some fundamental values of the researcher. In this article, the authors try to address this conflict between repetitive research and fundamental research in light of the never-ending journey of benzoin condensation, which has continued for 150 years. With the help of this example, it can be established that the fundamental outcome of the research can be achieved via a continuous extension of the research process.