What is the Longest Molecule Ever Discovered?

[mollwollfumble]

TL;DR

Longest DNA, nanotube, polymer, silk, nylon, glass, wire

What is the longest molecule? Are we talking about of order of magnitude:

• 1 metre, eg. DNA, carbon nanotube, polyethylene (UHMWPE)?
• 1 kilometre, eg. silk strand, monofilament nylon?
• 100 to 1,000 km, eg. steel wire for suspension bridge, copper wire, optical glass fibre?
• 12,700 km, covalent bonding connecting the whole of the Earth's crust?

 

[Borek]

What have you found so far?

Why do you think things you listed count as molecules? What is a molecule?

 

[naresh123]

Carbohydrates, Proteins, Lipids, Nucleic acid are Four Large Molecules

 

[DaveC426913]

Seconding Borek's question: you should first learn what defines a molecule. That will make the answer to your quiz quite simple.

 

[mollwollfumble]

Carbohydrates, Proteins, Lipids, Nucleic acid are Four Large Molecules

Carbohydrates and nucleic acids can each by up to of order two metres long. Aren't proteins and lipids very much smaller?

 

[Frigus]

Aren't proteins and lipids very much smaller?

I think only lipids falls in micromolecules and proteins are macromolecules.

 

[chemisttree]

I had a professor that said it was the ocean since water is always in the process of taking/borrowing hydrogens. He said that touching a water molecule along the shore here in North America had an effect on a water molecule in Antartica. I always wondered how he would prove something like that...

 

[hutchphd]

What is the distinction between a crystalline solid (or a metal) and a molecule? There are individual atoms and variously stable agglutinations of atoms: to me the other designations seem arbitrary (and possibly capricious!)

 

[Mayhem]

An nth-length alcohol or something similar would probably be the longest.

 

[hutchphd]

Can't one make certain polymers as long as is desired? Maybe thermodynamic fluctuations produce a practical limit?? Seems like you just add another monomer.

 

[Algr]

Can't one make certain polymers as long as is desired? Maybe thermodynamic fluctuations produce a practical limit?? Seems like you just add another monomer.

That was my understanding. You can just keep stitching carbon atoms on the end in a DNA-Like structure and keep going forever. I wonder if a degenerate star counts as being a molecule? I suppose it has to be pure chemical forces and not gravity holding it together.

 

[binis]

Largest hollow cage molecule yet made from 1000 atoms Giant polyoxymetalate cluster contains 240 molybdenum, 740 oxygen and 20 sulfur atoms. Polymers might not considered as molecules, even cellulose or polyethylene.

 

[Borek]

Polymers does not consider as molecules

By whom?

https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/M04002

 

[binis]

By whom? https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/M04002

In my opinion, polymers must not be considered as molecules. Forgive me.