helicity
/hiːˈlɪsɪti
/noun [mass noun]
1chiefly Biochemistry Helical character, especially of DNA.The reason for the relatively low helicity of long peptides is unclear to us....
- One peptide was designed to maximize helicity and the other, having the same composition but a different sequence, was designed to minimize helical formation.
- Mechanistically, the expansion event begins with a slight loss of helicity in the stem region.
2 Physics A combination of the spin and the linear motion of a subatomic particle.Linear equations can't easily capture magnetic field helicity, a property that prevents much of the field's energy from dissipating as heat....
- One physicist later wrote that, had Maurice Goldhaber not existed, ‘I am not sure that the helicity of the neutrino would ever have been measured‘.
Origin
1950s (in sense 2): from Latin helix, helic- 'spiral' + -ity.