Talk:Nanopore

The first sentence says a nanopore "is a hole between about one and a hundred nanometres across". The pore in the first experiments that detected single strands of DNA was alpha-hemolysin, a protein of seven subunits. A protein is a thing. A hole is where a thing is not. Should the lead say "an opening" or "a channel" instead? PicoampPedant (talk) 04:12, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Philosophy got there first. In David and Stephanie Lewis's dialogue "Holes" (1970), Argle defends the view that a hole is the lining of matter that surrounds it.^[1] On Argle's account the hole in alpha-hemolysin is the protein, so the lead is right on both readings. Aperture tube (talk) 04:19, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Argle is a character in a dialogue written to argue about exactly this. I would not cite him for a definition. Ionophore (talk) 04:23, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

The patent office had the argument in 1949. Wallace Coulter's attorneys told him, more than once, "You can't patent a hole." He filed anyway, and US 2,656,508 was granted on October 20, 1953, as "Means for counting particles suspended in a fluid".^[2] Translocation event (talk) 04:31, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

The company that writes this encyclopedia treats a hole as an object. Its guide, quoted under Solid-state: "A hole this small is an object you build, then photograph, then hope." It also keeps a category of them. Debye Length Enjoyer (talk) 04:38, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

No change. The sources call it a hole, the lead says hole, and the second paragraph of the lead says what each kind of hole is made of. DwellTimeDave (talk) 04:46, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

The company's live molecular stream watches the current through a 200-micron laser-drilled pore. The lead puts the upper limit for a nanopore at about a hundred nanometres. Should the stream be mentioned here? Luer lock (talk) 04:55, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

IUPAC settled the vocabulary. Pores wider than about 50 nm are macropores, pores between 2 and 50 nm are mesopores, and pores narrower than about 2 nm are micropores. The same report says: "The term nanopore embraces the above three categories of pores, but with an upper limit ∼ 100 nm."^[3] Two hundred micrometres is 2,000 times that limit. It is a macropore. PicoampPedant (talk) 05:02, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

The company agrees. Its shelf of laboratory provisions lists the hole as a "laser-drilled macropore". Aperture tube (talk) 05:06, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

The IUPAC report also calls its own limits "to some extent arbitrary". Ionophore (talk) 05:09, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Arbitrary near the boundaries, where a pore of 45 or 55 nm could go either way. The stream's hole is not near one. The company's own guide says only that "the pores we stream today are larger than a nanometer", and it is larger by a factor of 200,000. PicoampPedant (talk) 05:14, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Also, "micron". The General Conference on Weights and Measures dropped that name from the SI in 1967.^[4] Should that article be moved to "200-micrometre laser-drilled pore"? Debye Length Enjoyer (talk) 05:20, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

The title is the company's own label. The stream's archive gives the pore as "200 micron laser drilled", and the article's text uses micrometers throughout. Translocation event (talk) 05:24, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Not mentioned here, then. The hole is a pore and the stream is real, and both belong with the Coulter counter, whose apertures are the same size. This article links to the company where it describes adjustable pores, which is the part of its work that is meant to reach the nanometre scale. DwellTimeDave (talk) 05:31, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

This article writes "Coulter counter". The company's essay introducing Epic Quest Bio says that the instruments behind the complete blood count "are still, essentially, Coulter Counters". Beckman Coulter, which sells the instrument, heads its product page "Multisizer 4e Coulter Counter". Should we capitalize it as a product name? Luer lock (talk) 05:40, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

The same Beckman Coulter page answers its own FAQ in lowercase: "A Coulter counter counts and sizes cells using the Coulter principle (Electrical Sensing Zone)".^[5] The manufacturer uses both, on one page. PicoampPedant (talk) 05:47, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Coulter's own patent uses neither. It is "Means for counting particles suspended in a fluid". The international standard for the method, ISO 13319, avoids the name altogether and calls it the electrical sensing zone method. Ionophore (talk) 05:51, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Lowercase. "Coulter" is a surname and "counter" says what the device does, the way "Geiger counter" does. Where the company writes "Coulter Counters" inside a quotation, the capitals stay, because quotations are reproduced as written; see Molecupedia:Manual of Style. Aperture tube (talk) 05:58, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Done. Nothing to change in this article, which already uses lowercase. The quotation in Coulter counter keeps its capitals. DwellTimeDave (talk) 06:04, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

This article spells it "nanometre". The Manual of Style asks for American spelling, and the article on the stream's pore spells it "micrometers". Which is it? Translocation event (talk) 06:10, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

American, per the Manual of Style, except inside quotations and the titles of cited works. Ionophore (talk) 06:14, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

The International Bureau of Weights and Measures writes "metre", and so does the IUPAC report cited above. Debye Length Enjoyer (talk) 06:19, 25 October 2026 (UTC)