Market: Specialists and graduate students in polymer physics, statistical physics, physical chemistry of polymers, materials science, molecular biophysics, and chemical engineering. This introductory volume presents in-depth descriptions of fundamental concepts as well as key industrial applications in polymer physical chemistry and molecular biophysics. Topics include statistical theories of polymer solutions, melts, polymer liquid crystals, polymer networks, and polyelectrolytes; statistics of ideal chains; the viscoelastic behavior of polymer systems; and various features of biopolymers, DNA, and proteins.

Partial Contents: 1. Ideal Polymer Chain. A Freely Jointed Chain. Flexibility of a Polymer Chain. Size of an Ideal Polymer Chain. 2. Polymer Chains with Volume Interactions. Basic Definitions and Methods. Polymer Chain Models of Systems with Volume Interactions. Basic Definitions in the Theory of Volume Interactions in Polymer Systems. Perturbation Theory for Polymer Coils with Volume Interactions. 3. Single Macromolecule with Volume Interactions. Swelling of a Polymer Coil in Good Solvent (excluded volume problem). Renormalization Group and S-expansion Methods Applied to the Excluded Volume Problem. Properties of Polymer Coils with Excluded Volume (the scaling concept and the notion of a blob). 4. Polymer solutions and melts. Basic Preliminary Data and Definitions. Theory of Polymer Solutions and Melts in the Self-Consistent Field Approximation. Appendix. Flory Lattice Theory of Polymer Solutions and Melts. 5. Other Polymer Systems. Polymer Mixtures and Block Copolymers. Liquid- Crystal Polymers. High Elasticity of Polymer Networks. Methods of Polymer Network Synthesis. 6. Dynamic Properties of Polymer Solutions and Melts. The Rouse Model: a Phantom Chain in Immobile Solvent. The