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I had the question when I was studying polymer physics. I can understand that polymers in melt will have smaller R than in good solvent (due to the space packing entropy as explained in de Gennes' book), but I could not understand why it should have exactly the some size as the non-self avoiding randomwalk.

2007-11-16 01:27:37 · 1 answers · asked by LI J 1 in Science & Mathematics Chemistry

1 answers

I'll have a go from first principles (not an expert on polymers).

I would have expected a SELF-AVOIDING walk in 3D, since (assuming all conformations equiprobable) each link is a step in a randomly chosen direction, but the chain cannot cross itself.

Perhaps the non-self-avoiding walk is chosen because it is very much easier to compute.

2007-11-16 01:45:18 · answer #1 · answered by Facts Matter 7 · 0 0

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