AbstractA question about broken rods and worms concerning the dimensional characteristics of poly(alkyl isocyanates) led to the discovery of an extreme sensitivity of this polymer class to tiny chiral perturbations. There is a cooperative source of this phenomenon and statistical thermodynamic methods allow quantitative expression to the forces at work. From this effort we could answer the original question and also extend these ideas into the area of lyotropic liquid crystals where the interplay of macromolecular and supramolecular helicity seems to play by the same rules.