Jslipscomb

James S. Lipscomb

About me

Education:

• B.S. Physics, Lafayette College.
• M.S. and Ph.D. Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Work: Software Engineer.

My LinkedIn page: [1]

My full Curriculum Vita, including patents and hotlinks: [2]

Articles that I have expanded

Molecular Graphics

Full disclosure: I helped build the GRIP-75 the interactive molecular graphics system. I added nothing more about the technology or the technologists of this system than there is for any other system.

A claim has been made by crystallographers who used GRIP-75 that it achieved a computer-graphics milestone: "This is the first instance in which a complete three-dimensional structure was solved with the use of computer graphics alone, without the construction of a physical model." As a builder of GRIP-75 it might be a conflict of interest for me to make such a claim. But this claim was made by a third party not involved in building the system. Therefore, I added a reference without comment (except here to clarify) to the page like this: "First large-molecule crystallographic structure solution."

Controversy: E. Meyer added a competing claim to the Molecular Graphics page on March 18, 2013: "The first two protein structures solved by molecular graphics without the aid of the Richards' Box were built with Stan Swanson's program FIT on the Vector General graphics display in the laboratory of Edgar Meyer at Texas A&M University: First Marge Legg in Al Cotton's lab at A&M solved the structure of staph. nuclease (1975) and then Jim Hogle solved the structure of monoclinic lysozyme in 1976. A full year passed before other graphics systems were used to replace the Richards' Box for modelling into density in 3-D."

Resolution: I suppose that the true priority to the claim of first structure solution by comuter graphics may revolve around who achieved the unpublished result first, and/or who published first. I do not know of a single person who knows all these facts. I simply note the competing claims on the page.

I added about 20 pioneering systems to the historical timeline. I added discussion of the Richards Box and the important MMS-X system. And I discuss computer science issues of address-space and display speed, large forces which seemed to have determined why parallel research groups achieved the same goal at about the same time.

William N. Lipscomb, Jr.: 1976 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry.

Full disclosure: I am the son of William N. Lipscomb, Jr.

The connected contributor tag has been added to the William Lipscomb Discussion page to indicate that I am editing: "Connected contributor|Jslipscomb|William Lipscomb|editedhere=yes|declared=yes"

I have written nearly the entire William N. Lipscomb, Jr. page. It had very little when I started. Usually such pages inadvertently aggandize the subject by omission, but I stress full credit to colleagues and to graduate students.

Chemists are needed to edit to professional quality beyond what I can do. I have listed known shortcomings that I do not have the chemistry background to address at the top of the Lipscomb Discussion Page.

Researchers who worked with William Lipscomb. Added to their pages the work they did in Lipscomb's lab:

• Roald Hoffmann and Thomas A. Steitz: Nobel prize winning doctoral students.
• Ada Yonath: Nobel prize winning associate who spent time in Lipscomb's lab while a doctoral student at MIT.
• Russell M. Pitzer, Donald Voet, and Don C. Wiley: Doctoral students.
• Michael Rossmann and Raymond C. Stevens: Postdoctoral students.
• M. Frederick Hawthorne: Boron chemist collaboator.

Molecules related to William Lipscomb:

• Aspartate carbamoyltransferase: Added image of the molecule from the Protein Data Bank.
• Carboxypeptidase Copied the Carboxypeptidase A image to the Carboxypeptidase page.
• Carboxypeptidase A and Carboxypeptidase E: Added "See Also" links to point to each other.
• Chorismate mutase: Added image of the molecule from the Protein Data Bank.
• Ethane: Added Ethane Barrier tutorial and history, omitting that the ethane barrier to rotation was first accurately calculated by Pitzer and Lipscomb. That would be for others to add if they are so inclined.
• Fructose 1,6-bisphosphatase: Added image of the molecule from the Protein Data Bank.
• Methyltransferase: Added image of the molecule from the Protein Data Bank.

Other subjects related to William Lipscomb:

• Lipscombite: New Wikipedia page.
• Zinclipscombite: New Wikipedia page.
• Classification of minerals – Non silicates: Linked existing entries to pages Lipscombite and Zinclipscombite.
• List of minerals: Added Lipscombite and Zinclipscombite.
• Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy: Added NMR spectrum of hexaborane with an example of the chemical shift. Not a good example, really, but the page needed some example, and this has sparked a discussion of replacing it with a simpler example. I hope so.
• Oliver Wolcott Gibbs: Added The Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory, a chemistry research building built in Gibbs' honor at Harvard University, a building where Lipscomb and his students did much of their Nobel prizewinning research.
• Sayre School: Added to this private elementary school's listing of William Lipscomb as a notable alumnus a link to his Wikipedia page and sourced information that he went to school there, found in one of his autobiographies.

Other pages

• APL (programming language): Added with examples: "A design theme in APL is to define default actions in some cases that would be syntax errors in their equivalent forms in most other programming languages."
• Beacon Line: Added that 25 miles of this abandoned train line is planned for use as the Beacon Line Rail Trail.
• Bicycle gearing: Added on Oct. 8, 2010 a simple way to understand "bicycle gear inches", important because they are given in some bicycle advertisements and the definition is hard to find on the Internet. A formula as a definition of bicycle gear inches can be trivially derived from formulas on the Bicycle gearing page, and I checked my formula with a tape measure and a bicycle whose gear-inches range is known. But my change was undone in favor of the unhelpful "Gear inches has no current physical significance;" Here is my problematic edit: "Gear inches corresponds to the distance (in inches) traveled by the bicycle for one rotation of the pedals divided by $\pi$, so a bicycle geared to 100.00 gear inches will travel 314.16 inches for one turn of the pedals."
• New York Wheel: Added on June 23, 2018 updated photos of site and parking garage.
• Mike Mansfield: Added the Mansfield Amendment of 1969/1970 that limited military funding of research by the Military Services to the paragraph that already mentioned his 1973 Amendment that did the same for DARPA.
• Pistol offense: Added in a minor revision to the legend for the picture of the American football Pistol Offense the words (left) and (right) to make it faster to see that the pistol formation is on the right.
• Rohloff Speedhub: Added one disadvantage and one advantage. Disadvantage: "... and it is about 500 to 1,000 grams heavier than a set of derailleur gears,(reference) ....". Advantage: "... (and at its ratio of 5.26:1 more range than a typical road bike ratio of 3.3:1 with an 11 to 36 tooth cassette) ...".
• SO-DIMM: Added, "LowHal SODIMMs are made using a low-halogen, environmentally-friendly process. It does not affect chip performance."
• Tesla Supercharger: Added, ... no fine if the Supercharger station is less than half full, $0.50/min. if station at least 50% full, $1.00/min. when station 100% full.
• Van Cortlandt Park: Added, "A project to pave the trail to make it a dual-use walking, bicycling trail the full north-south length of the park is underway ...."