Generality of The Model
While the elementary model described above is totally unadapted to the description of real-world polymers at the microscopic scale, it does show some relevance at the macroscopic scale in the case of a polymer in solution whose monomers form an ideal mix with the solvent (in which case, the interactions between monomer and monomer, solvent molecule and solvent molecule, and between monomer and solvent are identical, and the system's energy can be considered constant, validating the hypothesis of the model).
The relevancy of the model is, however, limited, even at the macroscopic scale, by the fact that it does not consider any excluded volume for monomers (or, to speak in chemical terms, that it neglects steric effects).
Other fluctuating polymer models that consider no interaction between monomers and no excluded volume, like the worm-like chain model, are all asymptotically convergent toward this model at the thermodynamic limit. For purpose of this analogy a Kuhn segment is introduced, corresponding to the equivalent monomer length to be considered in the analogous ideal chain. The number of Kuhn segments to be considered in the analogous ideal chain is equal to the total unfolded length of the polymer divided by the length of a Kuhn segment.
Read more about this topic: Ideal Chain
Famous quotes containing the words generality of, generality and/or model:
“Heroism, or military glory, is much admired by the generality of mankind. They consider it as the most sublime kind of merit. Men of cool reflection are not so sanguine in their praises of it.”
—David Hume (17111776)
“Heroism, or military glory, is much admired by the generality of mankind. They consider it as the most sublime kind of merit. Men of cool reflection are not so sanguine in their praises of it.”
—David Hume (17111776)
“One of the most important things we adults can do for young children is to model the kind of person we would like them to be.”
—Carol B. Hillman (20th century)