The Vibrating Cis-Helix, Propagating Trans-Helix and the Wave-Particle Duality

Every once in a while, I get these Eureka moments that seem to shock me to my core. Almost always relating to my quest to explain the Theory of Everything. Today I got one of the biggest shocks thus far. I think I’ve figured out the wave-particle duality! Or more specifically, I just realized that I’ve been wrong for three and a half years about most types of motion.

You see, I’ve been trying to explain the supramolecular motion of helices of interconnected molecules, using two different kinds of waves. One being a conventional wave and the other a static wave. Well, even this was a relatively new discovery. Before this I tried to explain molecular motion with regular waves, but with abysmal success. Some time ago, it became blindingly obvious that most molecules in liquids or gases need to be confined. That is, they are surrounded by other molecules, making regular wave-like motion impossible.

What I thought was the answer was that molecules in a helix of molecules don’t move orthogonally to the helix, but tangentially: that is, along the helix. But today when I tried to explain this tangential motion, I had an epiphany: tangential motion isn’t motion in one direction, but motion back and forth along the helix! A more familiar word for this is vibration!

Ok, I’ve probably lost some of you already. “What are you talking about?”, you might be thinking. In short, any particle can either move like wave, when they move at a right angle to the helix. In the figure below, I illustrate this by unraveling both a (trans) helix of particle (in yellow) to the right, and unravel its path of motion (in blue) to the left. I only show one arrow for a single particle in the helix, but really there would be a multitude of arrow along the yellow line, each pointing in a parallel direction.

But there isn’t an analogous blue arrow for the cis-helix. Rather, what happens is that the particles move a tiny length along the cis-helix, are reflected by their neighbor, move a tiny length in the opposite direction and never stop. And this is what all particles do: they vibrate. If you’ve ever heard of vibration in a context where there isn’t a physical object (such as a string in an instrument) involved, there’s a good chance (possibly a 100 % chance) that this is the sort of vibration that’s being talked about.

And I’m pretty sure that’s (almost) all there is to it. I think this model applies perfectly to molecules, but I can’t make strong pronouncements about light. I think the murky ground comes in the transitions from a propagating trans-helix to a vibrating cis-helix.

Anyhow, this realization means that I need to do some rewriting. But once I’ve solved the whole issue of molecular vibration, I think reviewers won’t try to lynch me. At least not as viciously compared to if I had suggested that molecules don’t really vibrate.