Add to ORKGThe Mori-Zwanzig projection operator technique was employed to derive the effective Hamiltonian for spin-segment coupling. The fluctuations of this operator are responsible for spin-lattice relaxation in polymer chains. In detail, dipolar interaction of spins is rigorously analyzed by components representing fluctuations of the Kuhn segment end-to-end vectors and local fluctuations on a length scale shorter than the root mean square Kuhn segment length. The former correspond to the usual coarse-grain picture of polymer chain mode theories. It is shown that these non-local chain modes dominate proton spin-lattice relaxation dispersion of flexible polymers at frequencies up to about 108 Hz. A corresponding evaluation of experimental data for ...