to the American Edition We are pleased that our modest work, published some time ago in Russian in Moscow* and which attracted the attention of polymer specialists, t will now be available to the EngJish speaking audience of scientists - chemists, physicists, and technologists engaged in creating new types of polymer materi als for modern technology and working on the fundamental prob lems of the solid-state physics and structure of polymer- due to the initiative of Plenum Press. In polymer science, the 1980s were marked by the birth of a new field and a new scientific trend related to the...

Examination of the early literature attests to the fact that the study of copolymerization was initiated when polymer science was in its infancy. It has continued to grow to a subject of major importance and has been a source of interest to both academic and industrialist alike. The wide spectrum of structures and properties available in the statistical copolymer has made this a fruitful field of exploration, but one particular and more restricted form which has held its own fascination for many is the limiting case of the strictly alternating copolymer. This is formed, in the ideal...

Drawing a picture of the current situation of this new field, this volume both summarizes the past achievements and analyzes the present unsolved problems.