Don't forget, "multiplicity" has its own negative connotations.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117108/

Shane Caldwell
McGill University

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 12:26 PM, Edward A. Berry <ber...@upstate.edu>
wrote:

> Also RAID (REDUNDANT array of inexpensive disks). To me redundancy implies
> robustness, overdetermination, like when I measure absorbance at 1500
> wavelengths to calculate the concentration of five absorbing species with a
> 2-parameter baseline offset.
> Exactly the connotation we want for our more-than-complete datasets.
> eab
>
> On 01/18/2015 09:29 AM, Ian Tickle wrote:
>
>> PS see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_redundancy_check .
>>
>> I.
>>
>> On 18 January 2015 at 13:54, Ian Tickle <ianj...@gmail.com <mailto:
>> ianj...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>     At the risk of further extending this philosophical (if not
>> etymological) discussion: in further defence of 'redundancy' I would point
>> out that 'no longer needed' is not the only meaning of 'redundant', though
>> admittedly it is the one that most often grabs the headlines!  The meaning
>> of 'redundant' in the context of employment is actually a relatively recent
>> one and somewhat changed from the original meaning.
>>
>>     In a scientific context there's a second meaning of 'redundant', and
>> in fact this one is much closer to the original one.  In information theory
>> the term 'redundant' applies to extra information added to a message being
>> passed down a transmission line, in order to reduce corruption and loss of
>> information, i.e. redundancy is absolutely needed to reduce the error
>> rate.  In a crystallographic context the purpose of redundancy, i.e.
>> measurements over and above those strictly required to obtain a structure,
>> is also obviously to reduce errors.  'Additional' here clearly does not
>> necessarily imply 'not needed'.
>>
>>     'Redundant' comes from the Latin 're', meaning 'again', and 'unda',
>> meaning 'wave', from which of course we get 'inundated' and 'undulator', so
>> 'redundant' means literally 'coming in waves' or 'overflowing'.  So we
>> could say that redundancy is the process of being inundated by data from an
>> undulator!
>>
>>     As BR points out 'multiplicity' has long been used to indicate the
>> number of equivalent reflexions generated by the point-group symmetry (so
>> in PG222 h00, hk0 and hkl have respectively multiplicites of 1, 2 and 4 for
>> non-zero hkl).  I googled 'reflection multiplicity' and the top hit was
>> http://pd.chem.ucl.ac.uk/pdnn/symm2/multj.htm .
>>
>>     Suppose I want to express the following idea: "Redundancy is likely
>> to be correlated with multiplicity".  How do I express that unambiguously
>> if 'redundancy' is redefined as 'multiplicity'?
>>
>>     Cheers
>>
>>     -- Ian
>>
>>     On 18 January 2015 at 13:12, Bernhard Rupp <b...@ruppweb.org <mailto:
>> b...@ruppweb.org>> wrote:
>>
>>         In defense of redundancy:
>>
>>         While the IUCr online dictionary is notably silent about
>> multiplicity, the term itself seems
>>         already oversubscribed and used differently in various
>> crystallographic contexts.
>>
>>         (i) Each general or special  position in a crystal structure has
>> a certain multiplicity, defined by symmetry.
>>
>>         (ii) General reflection multiplicity M is usually is defined by
>> reflection symmetry, and
>>         when reflections are affected by special operations, the
>> resulting corresponding
>>         lower multiplicity because they map onto themselves is accounted
>> for in the epsilon factor e.
>>
>>         Btw a useful table of M and e is Iwasaki & Ito Acta Cryst.
>> (1977). A33, 227-229
>>
>>         (iii) In case of Laue patterns, overlap of higher order
>> reflections is also called Multiplicity afaik
>>         (various Helliwell/Moffat et al papers explain this).
>>
>>         So expanding the term multiplicity to include multiple instances
>> of measurements of the same reflections
>>         - while admittedly avoiding the connotation of obsolescence -
>> adds to its promiscuous meaning,
>>         where context becomes part of the definition....
>>
>>         I abstain from making any suggestions because in the past this
>> has led to interesting
>>         but time-consuming philosophical discourse, proving in general
>> the multiplicity of my reflections
>>         and positions redundant if not obsolete.
>>
>>         Best, BR
>>
>>         -----Original Message-----
>>         From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK <mailto:
>> CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>] On Behalf Of Kay Diederichs
>>         Sent: Sonntag, 18. Januar 2015 09:28
>>         To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK <mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
>>         Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Redundancy vs no of frames
>>
>>         Dear Rohit Kumar,
>>
>>         I prefer the term "multiplicity" instead of "redundancy" because
>> the latter has a connotation of "not really needed any more".
>>
>>         The relation then is
>>
>>         multiplicity = c * number_of_frames * oscillation_range
>>
>>         where the constant c depends mainly on the space group.
>>
>>         HTH,
>>
>>         Kay
>>
>>         On Sun, 18 Jan 2015 02:35:46 +0530, rohit kumar <
>> rohit...@gmail.com <mailto:rohit...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>          >Dear all,
>>          >
>>          >Can anyone tell me how to calculate number of frames from
>> redundancy or
>>          >vica versa
>>          >
>>          >Thank you
>>          >
>>
>>
>>
>>

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