Supramolecular Motion for Dummies

In today’s post I’ll be talking about what supramolecular motion is and what it isn’t. I just realized that I hadn’t written about it before this. I had written a two part “Theory of Everything for Dummies” almost two years ago. But those posts were very different to what I’m talking about in this post. Back then I talked about an elementary particle of energy and its motion. This time I’ll take a step back and talk about the motion of much bigger particles: that of molecules.

Part 1: What is a Molecule?

If you think you have a good idea what a molecule is, you can skip this mini chapter. To begin with, I always consult Wikipedia to see whether I agree with its definitions (which I almost always do). Wikipedia says:

A molecule is a group of two or more atoms that are held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds.

So, when talking about how molecules are formed, we need to understand attractive forces and chemical bonds. But if we assume that nothing is happening to the molecules (i.e. there are no chemical reactions), we can ignore these. We can just imagine a molecule being a rather precise aggregate of atoms. However, molecules aren’t fully rigid. There are a bunch of chemical bonds in molecules that can vibrate, allowing them to move in non-linear paths. But let’s not get carried away.  We’ll talk about that in the next chapter.

Part 2. What is Molecular Vibration?

Unlike in the case of molecules, the Wikipedia page on molecular vibration is almost undecipherable to laypeople. The article begins with the phrase:

A molecular vibration is a periodic motion of the atoms of a molecule relative to each other, such that the center of mass of the molecule remains unchanged.

While there’s nothing technically wrong with the statement, it lacks context. Or specifically the article doesn’t give an easily understandable explanation of what causes the vibration of molecules. When I asked this question from ChatGPT, it answers:

Start quote:

1. Quantum energy in chemical bonds

Atoms aren’t rigidly fixed; their bonds act like springy force fields. Because of quantum mechanics, these “springs” can only hold certain discrete energy levels. Even at absolute zero, molecules still have zero-point energy, so they vibrate.

2. Heat (thermal energy)

As temperature increases, molecules absorb more energy. This extra energy goes into:

• stretching bonds,

• bending the molecule,

• twisting internal structures.

More heat → higher vibrational energy → faster/stronger vibrations.

3. Absorption of light (photons)

Infrared (IR) light has just the right amount of energy to excite vibrational modes. This is why:

• IR spectroscopy works (it measures molecular vibrations),

• Greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere (they absorb IR radiation and vibrate).

4. Collisions

In gases and liquids, molecules frequently collide, transferring kinetic energy that can excite vibrations.

End quote.

Again, there is nothing technically wrong with the answer. However, there is a strong notion of putting the cart before the horse. The closest to the main cause is the fourth cause: collisions. However, even there, the answer is not quite on the point.

Ultimately, molecular vibrations are caused by collision between molecules, but not exactly in the way described in the Wikipedia article. Rather, the collisions that cause vibrations are caused by steric effects. Even before any energy is transferred between two molecules, there is steric repulsion between molecules that causes them to be in constant curved motion.

Part 3. What are Steric Repulsion and Steric Drag?

According to Wikipedia:

Steric repulsive forces between overlapping electron clouds result in structured groupings of molecules stabilized by the way that opposites attract and like charges repel.

Simply put, if two neighboring molecules have electron clouds that have the same charges (like charges using the terms of the Wikipedia article), they repel each other. This repulsion is sufficient to cause strings of molecules to curve in their path. This is very similar, but not necessarily exactly the same as the curvature of spacetime.

Very simply put, molecules are arranged into strings that would move in a straight line, if not confined by surrounding molecules.

Only here do we step into an uncharted territory. Before my theory, steric effects were ‘subservient’ to random collisions. What I claim in my paper “The Theory of Supramolecular Motion, the Primary Structure of Lignin and its Application to Adhesives” is that steric effect come first and collisions come later. This means that a supramolecular string is an object that experiences no internal collision, at least in the absence of external collisions.

The so called “new force” I introduce isn’t really new, but rather the sum of all fundamental interactions. The force isn’t really action at a distance, but rather action at proximity. As the string of molecules cannot move in a straight line, because it moves in a medium with other segments of strings, the steric effect of the neighboring strings causes the sting to bend while moving.

If the steric environment of the pieces of string was identical everywhere, the string wouldn’t move in such an interesting way. However, because of a thought experiment, I’m forced to conclude that the steric environment experienced by the string cannot remain the same. Rather, the bending motion causes the string to entangle with a neighboring string, where the two neighboring strings rotate around each other. But this rotation is half as fast compared to the rotational component experienced by the entangled pair as a whole. This rather complicated process is explained in the manuscript currently under peer review, or more accurately at the desk of an editor, who’s been searching for peer reviewer for two weeks.

Assuming that my theory is correct, this curving of the trajectory of the molecules in spacetime is an inevitable effect of steric drag, the sum effect of all fundamental interactions, resulting in the formation of compact helical tori of molecules in constant motion.

Part 4. What if there Was no Supramolecular Motion?

This is an odd chapter for a post with the title “Supramolecular Motion for Dummies”. However, to some extent this is an inevitable title. The reason being that the theory that I propose isn’t the current consensus. Rather, the current understanding is that there are random collisions and whole bunch of cooky quantum madness that ensues from these random effects. The curious problem with this idea of random collisions is that it assumes collisions towards the center of helical wave. One could assume that these collisions towards the center could happen, but only if the collisions were from molecules (or a cluster of them) coming from outside of the helical string. But this assumption can only apply if molecules do not move like waves. And this is actually in contradiction with the basic assumption of quantum mechanics.

So, forget about the title of Part 4. I cannot imagine a feasible mechanism where there would not be supramolecular waves. Nothing makes sense without the theory of supramolecular motion. Rather, you inevitably face all sorts of problems. And that’s actually the major reason why they say people can’t really understand quantum mechanics. Present theoretical framework tries to apply random collisions to the theory and it just doesn’t work.

As a final note to today’s post is a failed attempt at an illustration by ChatGPT. I won’t even reveal what the prompt was. Suffice it to say, this wasn’t what I had in mind. Funnily enough, the picture does reproduce the prompt: just not the right parts of it.