From: Robert A. Knop Jr. (robert.a.knop@vanderbilt.edu)
Date: Fri Jan 02 2004 - 15:27:20 PST
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 03:25:02PM -0800, Alex Conley wrote:
> Alex (Kim) is right -- and it isn't a coincidence. Bessel tabulates
> lambda*R instead of R precisely so that you can work directly with energy
> (f_lambda). There's nothing wrong with using lambda*R, you just need to
> make sure that you realize that you are doing it and write the integral
> correctly. It is for this reason that many of the people I have talked to
> about this have thought that I'm trying to re-open the energy vs. photons
> argument, when in fact I am not.
Arg. I think there *is* something wrong with what Bessel did, in that
it pre-assumes that people won't know what they're doing.
The most "obvious" thing to quote is a transmission function. A
transmission function is a transmission function is a transmission
function. The same one works for energy and counts.
If you need counts, you should know that and use counts. If you need
energy, you should know that and use energy.
Bessel wrote it assuming everybody would need counts but use energy.
The bastard.
-Rob
-- --Prof. Robert Knop Department of Physics & Astronomy, Vanderbilt University robert.a.knop@vanderbilt.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Fri Jan 02 2004 - 15:27:44 PST