WHY FUNDAMENTAL DISCOVERIES ARE SO SPECIAL? 

Three categories of scientific achievements are reported to journals.

1. Latest scientific findings 

Reports mention the previous references on the work. Mostly scientists publish such findings as research papers though claimed as original reports in scientific journals.

2. Scientific discoveries 

• Scientific discovery cannot be done by every scientist and every nation. Scientific discovery is rarest of rare accomplishment in science. They do not mention previous references on the work done. Scientific finding is regarded as ‘discovery’ when it would bring a revolutionary improvement to the subject under study. Discoveries are also predicted, but their existence has to be experimentally practically established by the same scientist or other scientists immediately or later.

• Drug discovery: When scientists bring out a new drug after long and intense research for treatment of a particular disease, they sometimes claim it as a drug discovery. But that medicine takes a back seat when better medicine with least side effects come into the market. So drug discoveries show short life.

3. Fundamental discoveries 

Fundamental discoveries are extremely important category among discoveries by their simple virtue that they act as building blocks to new science. They are rarely accomplished by men of science. Experimentally proven and never challengeable fundamental discoveries remain forever in annals of science. Albert Einstein’s Photo Electric effect comes under a fundamental discovery.