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Polymer chains: like snakes, they wriggle. (polymer chains show serpentine movements) (Brief Article)

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From: Science News
Date: 19930918
Author:Lipkin, Richard

"Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes," wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley But what if polymers - those long, chain-like molecules - writhed in motion like a cloud of snakes?

Apparently, the do. A report in the Sept. 16 NATURE supports the theory that polymers move about in a snake-like manner, with one end of the molecular chain leading and the rest of the links wriggling along in tandem. The motion, called reptation, suggests a reptilian slithering, which approximates how a tangled polymer - like a basket of snakes - behaves as it diffuses from one surface to another.

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