Molecules: You'd better learn to live with them.
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Synthesizing big cyclic molecules is hard ("macrocycles") - closing a long chain of carbons into a ring often results in just making polymers and oligomers ("intermolecular" reactions). One early way of closing rings on themselves ("intramolecular" reactions) was to perform the reaction at high dilution. An example is illustrative:
Take an empty swimming pool and fill it 10% of the way up with snakes. Observe how the snakes are much more likely to bump into each other than curl up on themselves. This is analogous to an intermolecular reaction.
Obtain a second swimming pool and fill it 90% of the way with water. Now dump the same number of snakes in. If necessary, you can reuse the snakes from part 1. Observe how the snakes are much less likely to bump into one another, and many will end up touching part of themselves with another part of their body. This is analogous to an intramolecular reaction. As go snakes, so go long chains of carbon.
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