The representation is simply non-parsimonious. There is no meaning to the zepto-meter digits.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate. BR From: James Holton [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2014 9:58 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Protein Crystallography challenges Standard Model precision Where is it written that compactness of representation and accuracy/precision are the same thing? Is 1/3 more or less precise than 0.333 ? If mmCIF were a binary floating-point format file, there would be more "decimal places" in the precision of the stored value for the unit cell, despite fitting into only 4 bytes instead of the 13 bytes of text some seem offended to see below. Would that be better? Or worse? -James Holton MAD Scientist On 7/22/2014 4:01 AM, Bernhard Rupp wrote: I am just morbidly curious what program(s) deliver/mutilate/divine these cell constants in recent cif files: data_r4c69sf # _audit.revision_id 1_0 _audit.creation_date ? _audit.update_record 'Initial release' # _cell.entry_id 4c69 _cell.length_a 100.152000427 _cell.length_b 58.3689994812 _cell.length_c 66.5449981689 _cell.angle_alpha 90.0 _cell.angle_beta 99.2519989014 _cell.angle_gamma 90.0 # Maybe a little plausibility check during cif generation might be ok Best, BR PS: btw, 10^-20 meters (10^5 time smaller than a proton) in fact seriously challenges the Standard Model limits . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Bernhard Rupp k.-k. Hofkristallamt Crystallographiae Vindicis Militum Ordo [email protected] [email protected] http://www.ruppweb.org/ -----------------------------------------------------------------------
