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...