As a self-declared "MAD Scientist" I suppose I should chime in.
The acronym "MAD" has indeed appeared by several different names in the
literature. Here is the "Google vote":
"multiwavelength anomalous diffraction" - 16500 articles in Google
Scholar (including Yang et. al. (1990))
"multiwavelength anomalous dispersion" - 6890 articles
"multiple anomalous dispersion" - 3250 articles
"multiple anomalous diffraction" - 956 articles
"multiple anomalous difference" - 3 articles
Clearly, there are thousands of publications that have gotten this
"wrong", but which thousands is uncertain. I fully understand that
Google Scholar is not the final authority on ... anything, and popular
vote is not always the best way to settle scientific naming conventions
either. For example, I am still calling Pluto a planet. I am also
never going to call San Francisco's Candlestick Park by any of its new
names (3COM Park, Monster Park, and now back to Candlestick!). And the
"Artist Formerly Known as Prince" was always "Prince" to me. The reason
for my personal inertia about name changes is that I need to hear a
scientifically compelling reason for them. Why do I care? Because the
scientific literature is supposed to be archival, and as a scholar who
often finds himself going through this archive trying to find the
original reference for various things, I find “nomenclature drift”
endlessly infuriating.
Then again, the name given by the originating author is not always the
best name either. Nobody calls Patterson maps an "F-square synthesis"
(as Patterson did).
Oh, and although many lemmings do drown in big rivers and even the
ocean, their legendary periodic mass suicide runs have been greatly
exaggerated. A few years back, the Disney film crew who made the "White
Wilderness" documentary admitted that the little guys did need some
"encouragement" for the really good shots they wanted.
So, it would appear that even lemmings have some sense in their tiny
little heads? Do we? Does anyone have a scientifically compelling
reason to call MAD something other than "multiwavelength anomalous
diffraction"?
-James Holton
MAD Scientist
On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 12:28 PM, Ethan Merritt
<merr...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
On Wednesday, 18 January 2012, Soisson, Stephen M wrote:
But if we were to follow that convention we would have been stuck with
Multi-wavelength Resonant Diffraction Experimental Results, or, quite simply,
MuRDER.
You could switch that to Multiple Energy Resonant Diffraction Experiment
but I don't think that would help any.
As to "anomalous" - the term comes from the behaviour of the derivative
delta_(optical index) / delta_(wavelength)
This term is positive nearly everywhere, but is anomalously negative
at the absorption edge.
Ethan
-----Original Message-----
From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Jacob
Keller
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 3:13 PM
To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Merging data collected at two different wavelength
This begs the question* whether you want the lemmings to understand
you. One theory of language, gotten more or less from Strunk and
White's Elements of Style, is that the most important feature of
language is its transparency to the underlying thoughts. Bad language
breaks the transparency, reminds you that you are reading and not
simply thinking the thoughts of the author, who should also usually be
invisible. Bad writing calls attention to itself and to the author,
whereas good writing guides the thoughts of the reader unnoticeably.
For Strunk and White, it seems that all rules of writing follow this
principle, and it seems to be the right way to think about language.
So, conventions, even when somewhat inaccurate, are important in that
they are often more transparent, and the reader does not get stuck on
them.
Anyway, a case in point of lemmings is that once Wayne Hendrickson
himself suggested that the term anomalous be decommissioned in favor
of "resonant." I don't hear any non-lemmings jumping on that
bandwagon...
JPK
*Is this the right use of "beg the question?"
On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 1:57 PM, Phoebe Rice <pr...@uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Can I be dogmatic about this ?
>>
>>I wish you could, but I don't think so, because even though those
>>sources call it that, others don't. I agree with your thinking, but
>>usage is usage.
>
> And 10,000 lemmings can't be wrong?
