I think we can go for the meanings in freedom that share the sense that something is free if it can change without constraint so long as we include the sense of aloneness in free found in the meanings chemists have given to Free Radicals.
A free radical is an unpaired electron which is short lived, highly reactive and unstable as it bobs around looking for stability by stealing or sharing an electron from other molecules. When two Free Radicals meet they clash into each other and combine to form a stable pair. When the union happens a Free Radical is no longer a free radical.
Of course, in chemistry, free radical is not quite that straightforward, there's a further complexity that requires a basic grasp of the word valence. Electrons prefer pairs, they bond as positive and negatives, An unattached electron is within the orbit of an atom, an ion or a molecule. Within this context of a disgruntled, lonely unbonded electron that's already a part of something, a free radical presents the entire atom, ion or molecule with the destabilizing insecurity which when free radicals find each other results in new chemical bonds between atoms and molecules.
I don't know about ions, possibly they just doff the hat as they pass in the night but for the atoms and molecules in something like a barrel of crude oil the insecurities of free radicals when correctly encourage by devious chemists can be persuaded to become a billion plastic shopping bags.
The uncertainties of the Free Radical hint at an idea amongst psychiatrists, sociologists and sometimes philosophers that we people, without our chains, would probably define freedom in terms of disappearing into nowhere as a blinding light. Instead we fear death because we fear freedom and have a penchant for inventing a rule based paradise.
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