Giant Molecules: Here, There, and Everywhere

Abstract

Introduction: Physics in the World of General Molecules. What Does a Polymer Molecule Look Like? Polymers are Long Molecular Chains. Flexibility Mechanisms. A Portrait of a Polymer Chain. Heteropolymers, Branched and Charged Macromolecules. Ring Macromolecules and Topological Effects. How are Polymers Made? What Kinds of Polymer Substances are There? Traditional States of Matter and Polymers. Possible States of Polymer Substances. Plastics. Polymeric Fibres. Polymeric Liquid Crystals and Superstrong Fibres. Polymer Solutions. Polymer Blends and Block-Copolymers. Ionomers and Associating Polymers. Polymers in Nature: A Few Words About Water and the Love or Fear of It. Head-and-Tail molecules. Molecular Biology and Molecular Architecture. Molecular Machines: Proteins, RNA, and DNA. The Chemical Structure of Proteins, DNA and RNA. Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Structures of Biopolymers. Globular Protein Enzymes. Tertiary Structures of Other Biopolymers. Physics and Biology. The Mathematics of a Simple Polymer Coil: Mathematics in Physics. Analogy Between a Polymer Chain and Brownian Motion. The Size of a Polymer Coil. Derivation of the Square Root Law. Persistent Length and Kuhn Segment. The Density of a Polymer Coil and Concentration Ranges of a Polymer Solution. The Gaussian Distribution. The Physics of High Elasticity: Columbus Discovered ... Natural Rubber. High Elasticity. The Discovery of Vulcanization. Synthetic Rubber. High Elasticity and Stretching of an Individual Polymer Chain. Entropy. Entropic Elasticity of a Polymer Chain. Entropic Elasticity of a Polymer Network. The Guch-Joule Effect and Thermal Phenomena During the Deformation of Rubber. The Problem of Excluded Volume: Linear Memory and Volume Interactions. Excluded Volume-Formulating the Problem. The Density of a Coil and Collisions of Monomer Units. Good and Bad Solvents, and Q Conditions. The Swelling of a Polymer Coil in a Good Solvent. The Excluded Volume Effect in a Semi-Dilute Solution. The Compatibility of Polymer Blends. Coils and Globules: What is a Coil-Globule Transition. The Free Energy of a Globule. The Energy of Monomer Interactions. The Entropy Contribution. The Swelling Coefficient a. The Coil-Globule Transition. Pre-Transitional Swelling. Experimental Observation of the Coil-Globule Transition. Dynamics of the Coil-Globule Transition. Some Generalizations. The Collapse of Polymer Networks. The Globular State of the DNA Double Helix. Globular Structure of Proteins and Conformational Transitions in Globular Proteins. In Vivo, In Vitro, In Virtuo... Dynamics of Polymeric Fluids: Viscosity. Viscoelasticity. The Reptation Model. The Longest Relaxation Time. Young+s Modulus of a Network of Effective Crosslinks. The Tube. The Dependence of the Longest Relaxation Time on the Chain Length. The Viscosity of a Polymer Melt and the Self-Diffusion Coefficient. (Part contents).