Thermal analysis is an old technique. It has been neglected to some degree because developments of convenient methods of measurement have been slow and teaching of the understanding of the basics of thermal analysis is often wanting. Flexible, linear macromolecules, also not as accurately simply called polymers, make up the final, third, class of molecules which only was identified in 1920. Polymers have neverbeenfullyintegratedintothedisciplinesofscienceandengineering. Thisbook is designed to teach thermal analysis and the understanding of all materials, flexible macromolecules, as well as...

Today is Sunday, June 17, 2007. Father's Day. Naturally, the obligatory, carefully selected cards, phone calls, and small gifts arrived from the children and grandchildren. Best wishes for Father's Day were also the first words in the morning from Heidel, my wife of 54 years, although for many years I had made the comment: "I am not your father. " But, in the frame of my life's experiences th th in the 20 century, as I intend to summarize them over the next few years, the 17 of June has much deeper significance. This was the day in 1953 when we finally fled from our life of oppression which...

The broad field of conformational motion disorder in crystals is described with particular attention to the separation from the well known mesophases of liquid crystals and plastic crystals. Structure, thermodynamics and motion of a larger number of small and large molecules are discussed. Of special interest are the borderlines between smectic and high viscosity liquid crystals and condis crystals and between plastic crystals and condis crystals as complicated by pseudorotation, jumping between symmetry-related states and hindered rotation. This paper illustrates the wide distribution of...