ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Helix angle

Hello there! The helix angle is like the twisty part of a curly straw. When you look at a curly straw, you see that it has a long tube that is curled around like a spiral staircase. The part of the spiral staircase that goes around and around is called the helix angle.

When we talk about the helix angle, we're talking about how steep that angle is. If you look at the straw again, you might notice that the twisty part goes up at an angle. Some curly straws have a steep angle, which means that the twisty part goes up really fast. Other straws have a shallow angle, which means that the twisty part goes up more slowly.

The same thing is true for things in nature, like plants or DNA. They have a helix angle too! The helix angle of a plant is how tightly the leaves are twisted around the stem. The helix angle of DNA is how tightly the "ladder" of the DNA molecule is twisted.

So, when we talk about the helix angle, we're really just talking about how twisty something is, and how steep that twistiness is. It's like looking at a curly straw and figuring out how tight the twist is, and how much it twists around as it goes up.