... and positive difference density should be red not green :-)
Phil

On 26 Feb 2010, at 09:22, Tim Gruene wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
> Gerard Kleywegt, Bernhard Rupp and also John Helliwell explained to me that 
> the
> unit of f' and friends is indeed meant to be electrons as in the elementary
> particle and not electrons as charge unit as in eV.
> 
> Personally I find this very irritating and such things should be avoided - the
> formulae wouldn't change by using e (as in charge) as unit and adding a
> minus-sign. I should remember that a charge density map has negated signs
> compared to an electron density map.
> 
> But I admit this is my personal view and might start a lengthy discussion 
> about
> units as - if I remember correctly - we had on this board not long ago.
> 
> It's just like my disliking that negative charge seems red for chemists and
> positive charge seems blue.
> 
> Cheers, Tim
> 
> On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 10:01:45AM +0100, Gerard DVD Kleywegt wrote:
>> Hi Tim,
>> 
>> Maybe it's too early in the day for me, but why can't electrons be a 
>> unit? You seem to be confusing physical (in-)divisibility of an entity 
>> with the symbolic use of fractions of that entity in calculations. We can 
>> speak of the average number of cows per acre of land without having to 
>> cut up cows into small pieces (although I love a good steak as much as 
>> the next person - and probably a lot more than that), or the average 
>> number of people on a plane without having to remove some limbs of a 
>> particular person to represent that number (although amputation of my 
>> legs would make my journeys a lot more comfortable in terms of legroom).
>> 
>> --dvd
>> 
>> Disclaimer: this answer does not involve any (mention of) CCP4 software. 
>> Mea culpa.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, 26 Feb 2010, Tim Gruene wrote:
>> 
>>> Dear all,
>>> 
>>> I just stumbled across the question about what is the unit of f' and 
>>> f''. The
>>> first couple of hits from ixquick.com claim it was e^-. Since e^- is 
>>> not a unit
>>> but symbolises an elemtary particle (of which fractions are considered
>>> non-existent), I was wondering whether the unit of f, f', and f'' is 
>>> actually e
>>> (a positive charge!) and the value of f^0 of Fe at its K-edge was 
>>> actually 26e
>>> or -26e - see e.g. Table 1 in
>>> http://www.ccp4.ac.uk/courses/proceedings/1997/j_smith/main.html
>>> 
>>> Cheers, Tim
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Tim Gruene
>>> Institut fuer anorganische Chemie
>>> Tammannstr. 4
>>> D-37077 Goettingen
>>> 
>>> GPG Key ID = A46BEE1A
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Best wishes,
>> 
>> --Gerard
>> 
>> ******************************************************************
>>                           Gerard J.  Kleywegt
>>   Dept. of Cell & Molecular Biology  University of Uppsala
>>                   Biomedical Centre  Box 596
>>                   SE-751 24 Uppsala  SWEDEN
>> 
>>    http://xray.bmc.uu.se/gerard/  mailto:[email protected]
>> ******************************************************************
>>   The opinions in this message are fictional.  Any similarity
>>   to actual opinions, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
>> ******************************************************************
> 
> -- 
> --
> Tim Gruene
> Institut fuer anorganische Chemie
> Tammannstr. 4
> D-37077 Goettingen
> 
> GPG Key ID = A46BEE1A
> 

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