Re: [ccp4bb]: ab initio

[Manfred Buehner <buehner@biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>]

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Salve communitas!

It's a nice debate about "ab initio", confusing, amusing!

A) Language:
   "ab initio" literally means "from the beginning"
     (which is as trivial as unnecessary to mention,
     except in Wonderland) and logically means "from
     first principles".
   "de novo" literally means "from new" (which is as
     trivial as unnecessary to mention in science) and
     logically means "from scratch" or "from basic
     building blocks".

B) History:
   "ab initio" is a technical term used for a long time
     by theoretical (organic) chemists, meaning calculation
     of molecular properties from wave functions and some
     operators I personally don't know much about, without
     using practical "chemical" knowledge.
   "de novo" is a technical term used for a long time by
     practical organic chemists for synthesis from very
     basic building blocks not structurally related to the
     final product (similar to "total synthesis").

C) Proposal:
   Xtallographers better leave those terms alone, i.e.
   leave them to their "inventors", the chemists, who had
   given them a "local" precise meaning.

   If we need to express certain characteristics of some
   ways to structure solution we might as well call them by
   their proper crystallographic names instead of pompous-
   ing our texts by misguided and misunderstood Latin.
   After all, crystallography grew up long after Latin had
   ceased to be the lingua franca of intellectual life.
   The first edition of the International Tables were not
   the "Tabulae Internationales", but the "Internationale
   Tabellen".

ROMA LOCUTA, CASA FINITA

Valete,
        Manfred
----------------------------------------------------------
 Dr. Manfred Buehner             Phone:  +49-931-888-4100
 Physiologische Chemie           FAX:    +49-931-888-4150
 Theodor-Boveri-Institut fuer Biowissenschaften
 Biozentrum der Universitaet Wuerzburg
 Am Hubland,  D-97074 WUERZBURG,  Germany
 Email:  buehner@biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de
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