BLOB

Figure C2.14.2. The hydrogen bond in water. The oxygen lone pairs (shaded blobs) are the donors, and the hydrogen atoms the acceptors [ 177, 178].

Figure 1.1 is a rather remarkable photograph which shows individual polystyrene molecules as spherical blobs having average diameters of about 20 nm. The picture is an electron micrograph in which a 10" % solution of polystyrene was deposited on a suitable substrate, the solvent evaporated, and the contrast enhanced by shadow casting. There is a brief discussion of both electron microscopy and shadowing in Sec. 4.7. Several points should be noted in connection with Fig. 1.1 ...

The circular cross section of the polymer blobs does not prove that the polymer existed in solution as a tangled coil (although this is the case). The shape displayed by the particles in the photograph is probably due in part to surface tension occurring during the drying of the sample. 

Since the preparation of the specimen began with such a dilute solution, there seems to be little doubt that the particles are individual polymer molecules rather than clusters thereof. The diameters of the blobs are of the right order of magnitude for random structures, although this comparison must be used cautiously in view of item (1). 

Note that a statistical study could be done on an electron micrograph like that shown in Fig. 1.1. The dimensions of the blobs could be converted to volumes and then to masses with a knowledge of the density of the deposited polymer. This approach could be organized into a table of classified data from which any of these averages could be calculated. 

Heterogeneous nucleation is most likely to occur when there is a strong tendency for the crystal to stick to the surface of the catalyst. This sticking tendency can be described by the angle of contact, 6, shown in Fig. 7.3 the smaller 6, the better the adhesion. Anyone who has tried to get electronic solder to stick to a strip of copper will understand this well. If the copper is tarnished the solder will just roll around as a molten blob with 6 = 180°, and will not stick to the surface at all. If the tarnished... 

Atmospheric haze can occur over regions of several thousand square kUometers, caused by the oxidation of widespread SO2 and NO2 to sulfate and nitrate in relatively slow-moving air masses. In the eastern United States, large air masses associated with slow- moving or stagnating anticyclones have become sufficiently contaminated to be called hazy blobs. These blobs have been tracked by satellites as they develop and move across the country (15). 

This small figure may also be compatible with a logarithmic decay [34,57]. Also, the survival probability of a blob of A species embedded in a B sea (separated by a wall of empty sites) decreases in time with exponent 6 = 0.80 0.20 (see Eq. (6)), reminiscent of critical behavior of the ZGB model at the first-order IPT [34]. 

The scaling analysis, mentioned in Sec. IIIB, predicts that one should observe a different kind of distribution in the dilute regime for chains which are smaller than the blob size [32] and thus behave essentially as isolated chains. These chains, which are fully swollen and may slip through the network made up from the chains of average size (L) without being seriously... 

The growth exponents a are most readily eonfirmed by plotting direetly the number of blobs L)/l against redueed density The data eol-lapse onto a single master eurve, seen in Fig. 7, whieh is indeed remarkable and a eentral result of the simulation [65,66]. The two indieated slopes mateh exaetly the predieted exponents 0.46, 0.60 (note that in... 

The crossover 2d 2d behavior can be described in a similar manner to the case of a tube confinement. For the chain, trapped between two parallel plates a distance D apart, one again has N/g blobs but they arrange to a two-dimensional random coil configuration ... 

As mentioned earlier, the physical properties of a liquid mixture near a UCST have many similarities to those of a (liquid + gas) mixture at the critical point. For example, the coefficient of expansion and the compressibility of the mixture become infinite at the UCST. If one has a solution with a composition near that of the UCEP, at a temperature above the UCST, and cools it, critical opalescence occurs. This is followed, upon further cooling, by a cloudy mixture that does not settle into two phases because the densities of the two liquids are the same at the UCEP. Further cooling results in a density difference and separation into two phases occurs. Examples are known of systems in which the densities of the two phases change in such a way that at a temperature well below the UCST. the solutions connected by the tie-line again have the same density.bb When this occurs, one of the phases separates into a shapeless mass or blob that remains suspended in the second phase. The tie-lines connecting these phases have been called isopycnics (constant density). Isopycnics usually occur only at a specific temperature. Either heating or cooling the mixture results in density differences between the two equilibrium phases, and separation into layers occurs. 

Daoud and Cotton [10] pioneered this geometrical analysis of tethered layers with spherical symmetry, which was later extended by Zhulina et al. [36] and Wang et al. [37] to cylindrical layers. The subsequent analysis is purely geometrical and requires no free energy minimization. The tethered layer consists of a stratified array of blobs such that all blobs in a given sublayer are of equal size, E , but blobs in different layers differ in size. This corresponds to the uniform stretching assumption of the Alexander model. 

The outwaird motion of the expelled chain is reminiscent of reptation since the chain of blobs moves, in effect, along its own contour. However, this case is... 

The minute capillary leaks found with a Tesla coil should be plug d with a blob of hot glass the whole joint then needs heating and annealing. When assembhng complex apparatus, parts which will become inaccessible to the flame must be tested for leaks before they are put in their final positions. 

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