A more detailed look at whats wrong with the FJ model

Short range problems (chemistry problems)

a) The FJ model would allow bonds to take any angle, including 180 and zero
degrees. Thats totally unrealistic; typical bonds adopt the tetrahedral angle of
109.5.
b) Bond angles tend to be correlated. If one set of bonds assumes gauche, the next
may not want to be gauche because this could produce a collision.
c) The first alkane chain large enough to exhibit this issue is pentane, so the problem
is often called the pentane effect.

Long range problem (a physics problem)

If you look at a chain from a far distance, as in the figure above, the chemical details
fade. Yet a problem remains: the chain does occupy a finite volume, and two segments
(the little circles) distant from each other along the contour of the chain still cannot
occupy exactly the same volume. Nor will they act independently. In real systems, be
they gases or polymers, there are always two basic non-idealities:
a) Attraction or repulsion (an enthalpic effect); may depend on solvent.
b) Excluded volume (entropic effect); generally doesnt go away.
An important difference between polymeric and other systems is that non-idealities
cannot be diluted away (reminds us of intrinsic viscosity, right?). No matter how few
total chains in the system, the connectedness of the polymer chain itself holds segments
in the same domain. Polymers always have that additional non-ideality: connectedness.