> It's pretty clear what solving means, it means to have an exact representation of the 3D structure. That's not clear at all, because perfect measurement does

> It's pretty clear what solving means, it means to have an exact representation of the 3D structure. That's not clear at all, because perfect measurement doesn't exist. I agree that improving is always a worthy goal, but clearly we don't need 100% accuracy to consider something "solved" for the purposes of science. Also, "3D structure" of a protein is not a fixed truth, the parts are in motion all the time and may even have multiple semi-stable conformations. Rather than focusing on X,Y,Z perfection, I would imagine getting the angles between bonds, or the general topological conformation right would be more valuable. > if you assume that experimental methods can't get better ... I'm saying that if your definition for "solved" is "perfect knowledge", then we might as well not discuss whether method X or Y solves the problem, because they obviously do not. The more I think about it, the more I think we should just drop the whole debate over the word "solved". Clearly different experiments and different proteins will have different requirements which may or may not be met by this or by other techniques - I agree that I would be interested to hear an expert weigh in on those requirements.