AbstractElectric birefringence studies have been made on a sample of high molecular weight cellulose trinitrate in acetone. The molecule is shown to have only a permanent dipole moment and no significant anisotropic polarisability in this solvent. Both the rotary relaxation times obtained from transient time dependent effects and the amplitudes of the observed birefringence have been analysed in terms of theories for rigid rods, weakly bending rods, worm‐like chains and both flexible and stiff random coils. The study indicates that (a) electric birefringence data are sensitive to molecular flexibility and (b) that in this solvent, nitrocellulose of 12% nitrogen content appears to be a stiff, non free draining coil with a dipole moment of the order of a few debye (i.e. ⋍ 10−29C m) per monomer