= Polymer physics
{wiki}
<Polymer physics> connects the conformations and motion of long <molecules> to the properties of a material. A <polymer> can change shape through many segment rotations while its chemical backbone remains intact. This makes the competition between flow and relaxation important: the same chain can behave as a coil in one experiment and an extended object in another. <Soft matter> includes both these flexible structures and <liquid crystals>, whose orientational order produces a different route to strong mechanical and optical response.
Back to article page
