On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 18:40:07 +0100 (CET), Miguel Howard wrote > > By *definition* the unit cell is the smallest repeat unit for the choice > > of symmetry. So there is no need for "singleton" anything, the unit cell > > is the unit cell. > > Hmmm ... I'm not sure I agree ... let me try to explain. > > Sometimes, you see a 'unit cell' by itself. Sometimes, you see a > collection of 'unit cells'. When you see a collection, each one of those > things is a 'unit cell'. > > In a context of a discussion (and in the context of programming), there > are times when you need to distinguish between these two cases. > > For example: > In a collection of unit cells each of the individual unit cells is > a copy of THE unit cell. > > In the real world they are all all equal. But in the programming > world, one of them is *more equal* than all the others. > > I need to give that one a special name.
Does this name need to be visible to users/scripters? unitcell => the unit cell at 0,0,0 aunitcell => any other unit cell ?? > > Jan proposed 'crystal' ... What do you think of that? But crystals are collections of unit cells with faces :-) i.e. they exist in the real world as something you can look at. I wouldn't want to overload the term "crystal" with such a meaning. Rich ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net is sponsored by: Speed Start Your Linux Apps Now. Build and deploy apps & Web services for Linux with a free DVD software kit from IBM. Click Now! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1356&alloc_id=3438&op=click _______________________________________________ Jmol-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jmol-users
