Howard Flack and the Flack Parameter
D.J. Watkin, Richard I. Cooper
Abstract
The Flack Parameter is now almost universally reported for all chiral materials characterized by X-ray crystallography. Its elegant simplicity was an inspired development by Howard Flack, and although the original algorithm for its computation has been strengthened by other workers, it remains an essential outcome for any crystallographic structure determination. As with any one-parameter metric, it needs to be interpreted in the context of its standard uncertainty.
Topics & Concepts
Context (archaeology)SimplicityMetric (unit)ComputationMathematicsComputer scienceAlgorithmPhysicsEngineeringQuantum mechanicsBiologyOperations managementPaleontologyX-ray Diffraction in CrystallographyCrystallography and molecular interactionsMolecular spectroscopy and chirality