[random_soldier1337 (OP)]

Something I've seen in nuclear materials research is that all of them are basically, I have a material, I am going to shoot energetic particles at it, I am going to record the numbers, take some before and after pictures and talk about what I saw. It does make sense that you would research like this considering most materials in nuclear environments do suffer bombardment from energetic nuclei and subatomic particles. The consistency in the formula of this research process, however, is something I did not expect. Is this how it works for every field when you get into something very specific and become an expert on it like in a PhD? For example, would experimental study of ionization in plasmas in space have you always looking at spectroscopic data from one cosmic body or another and accounting for what there is from your spectroscopic data and what all forces may have acted in that region and to what extent to give you what you have got?

Now that I put all my thoughts down, the answer seems like yes mostly. So I guess I'm probably looking for confirmation, unless there is something I didn't take note of.

[alancalverd]

It's generally a bit less random than your example suggests. There are four distinct starting points

1. We have an engineering problem with no textbook solution. What is the nearest thing we know that might solve it? Now  simulate the problem in the lab and tweak the solution: are the numbers good enough to build the bridge, or can we improve them?

2. We have an engineering failure. Can we simulate the conditions and find out why?

3. From what we know about X, I have an idea that something interesting will happen if we do Y.   

4. What is happening at Z?

Astronomy sits somewhere in the 3 - 4 region. For 3, the experiment has probably been done somewhere in the universe so let's look for the results. 4 can begin with an observation of something that wasn't there yesterday, or a previously-unnoticed variation in something we took for granted.

The underlying consistency  is in the recursive "observe, hypothesise, test"  algorithm of the scientific method. Most, but not all, research enters at the "observe" phase.

[random_soldier1337 (OP)]

Thanks. That's really insightful.

I was more referring to the reason on why there can be a lot of literature on one specific object in a similar series of general situations with minute details adjusted and often how it may be one person putting out a large quantity of this literature. It seems like said researcher might be spending decades on one this object/situation.

[alancalverd]

Academic career progress depends on weighing the candidate against the number of papers he has published, regardless of their value. Real life is about solving problems.