Self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules into inverted micelles

What is happening here?

In this case the special structure formed is called a inverted micelle. The medium the molecules are placed in, is a non-polar liquid e.g. oil. The heads are comfortable being shielded from the oil as much as possible whereas the tails are comfortable being exposed to oil. Therefore the molecules are most comfortable on having their heads inwards and their tails outwards. The resultant configuration is a low energy configuration - though it is susceptible to being disrupted by thermal effects.

The molecules are initially randomly placed in oil but over a period of time due to the forces acting on the molecules they tend to organise into inverted micelles. The molecule has two modes of motion (called 'degrees of freedom' by physicists): motion resulting in simple translation and motion resulting in a rotation of the molecule.

If the non-polar liquid (oil) were replaced with water then the corresponding structure formed would be an micelle. These structures have several significant functions.

What do the buttons do?

• If the 'Restart' button is pressed, then the molecules start all over again from the same initial position. This means that the simulation will run again exacly as before.
• If the 'Start' button is pressed, then the molecules start all over again, but this time from a different set of positions: consequently they trace a different path than the previous instance of the simulation.
• The 'Pause' and 'Resume' buttons, pause the simulation and restart the simulation from where it was paused respectively.