Should we establish an explicit rule in IMP that all distances are in angstroms? The range of scales is small enough that we don't have accuracy issues for doing this. In addition, we then don't have to worry about some things being in nanometers (since we have no way of tagging things with units).
Ben already established a convention of having units if kCal/MolAngstrom for derivative quantities. So angstroms fits with that.
I thought it was already established :)
On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Daniel Russel drussel@gmail.com wrote: > Should we establish an explicit rule in IMP that all distances are in > angstroms? The range of scales is small enough that we don't have accuracy > issues for doing this. In addition, we then don't have to worry about some > things being in nanometers (since we have no way of tagging things with > units). > > Ben already established a convention of having units if kCal/MolAngstrom for > derivative quantities. So angstroms fits with that. > > _______________________________________________ > IMP-dev mailing list > IMP-dev@salilab.org > https://salilab.org/mailman/listinfo/imp-dev > >
Daniel Russel wrote: > Should we establish an explicit rule in IMP that all distances are in > angstroms? The range of scales is small enough that we don't have > accuracy issues for doing this. In addition, we then don't have to worry > about some things being in nanometers (since we have no way of tagging > things with units). > > Ben already established a convention of having units if kCal/MolAngstrom > for derivative quantities. So angstroms fits with that.
I see no reason to force people to use any particular unit, if they really wanted to measure everything in some ridiculous unit like yards (I apologize on behalf of the English for saddling the US with the Imperial system). But it makes sense for it to be explicit that by default we deal in angstroms, rather than implicit as it is now.
Ben
Absolutely:
1) Make things explicit, please. Daniel's suggestion is right. 2) And use the International System, please. No paper is accepted if the units are not in the IS, so I don't see any reason not to use them. Other units should be secondary.
Javi
2009/5/14 Ben Webb ben@salilab.org
> Daniel Russel wrote: > > Should we establish an explicit rule in IMP that all distances are in > > angstroms? The range of scales is small enough that we don't have > > accuracy issues for doing this. In addition, we then don't have to worry > > about some things being in nanometers (since we have no way of tagging > > things with units). > > > > Ben already established a convention of having units if kCal/MolAngstrom > > for derivative quantities. So angstroms fits with that. > > I see no reason to force people to use any particular unit, if they > really wanted to measure everything in some ridiculous unit like yards > (I apologize on behalf of the English for saddling the US with the > Imperial system). But it makes sense for it to be explicit that by > default we deal in angstroms, rather than implicit as it is now. > > Ben > -- > ben@salilab.org http://salilab.org/~ben/http://salilab.org/%7Eben/ > "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." > - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle > _______________________________________________ > IMP-dev mailing list > IMP-dev@salilab.org > https://salilab.org/mailman/listinfo/imp-dev >
Javier Ángel Velázquez Muriel wrote: > 1) Make things explicit, please. Daniel's suggestion is right. > 2) And use the International System, please. No paper is accepted if the > units are not in the IS, so I don't see any reason not to use them. > Other units should be secondary.
I don't think SI units are a very sensible idea - the SI unit of distance is the meter. We'd have lots of precision problems if we defined everything in meters (and I've actually seen lots of papers that use distance measures other than meters, such as angstroms or nanometers). Angstroms don't have this problem, of course.
If you're referring to my suggestion to use yards, your sarcasm detector may need servicing. ;)
Ben
participants (4)
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Ben Webb -
Daniel Russel -
Dina Schneidman -
Javier Ángel Velázquez Muriel