  Generic interactions e.g. the Coulomb or other long ranged radially symmetric
repulsive interactions between monomers of bead-spring model of a semi-flexible
polymer induce instabilities in a initially straight polymer chain to form long
lived helical structures. This mechanism can explain the spontaneous emergence
of helices in stiff (bio-)polymers as effective charge of the chain increases.
The helix formation is independent of the chemistry and torsional potentials
are not used. So this method can be used to synthesize helical springs at
length scales of nm-10$\mu$.
