 Flory approximation

The Flory approximation balances the entropic cost of expanding an ideal chain against a mean-field excluded volume interaction. For $N$ segments of length $b$ in $d$ spatial dimensions, minimizing $R^2/(N{b}^2)+v{N}^2/R^d$ gives $R^{d+2}\sim v{N}^3{b}^2$. This yields the scaling exponents $3/5$ in three dimensions and $3/4$ in two dimensions. It is a scaling approximation, not an exact numerical free energy or proof of critical exponents; confinement replaces $R^d$ by the accessible coil volume.