Come on, Jim, even now 90% of students don't realize that <bold>F</bold>
is a phased amplitude, we think of it as a complex number, and that F(obs)
or F(calc) are probably the appropriate |F|.
Bob
On Mon, 12 Jan 2009, Jim Pflugrath wrote:
I wonder if the early use of the shortened "structure amplitude" is because
it was a pain to do any typing, word processing, typesetting, etc before
Gutenberg.
But soon crystallographers will be solving all their structures on their cell
phones and also just text messaging manuscripts to editors and CCP4BB. So we
should probably be thinking of the newer shortened spelling of our scientific
terms of the future.
Jim
PS: I vote for that "structure factor amplitude" be used in text books and
|F| on cell phones. Student of 2015: "You mean 'abs-F' is really pronounced
'structure factor amplitude'? I didn't know that!"
--
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Robert M. Sweet E-Dress: sw...@bnl.gov
Group Leader, PXRR: Macromolecular ^ (that's L
Crystallography Research Resource at NSLS not 1)
http://px.nsls.bnl.gov/
Biology Dept
Brookhaven Nat'l Lab. Phones:
Upton, NY 11973 631 344 3401 (Office)
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