Flory Paul

Flory, Paul J. (1910-1986). An American chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1974 for his work in polymer chemistry. He published extensive work on the physical chemistry of polymers and macromolecules. He held many medals and awards. Flory received his doctorate from Ohio State University in 1934. He was the C. J. Wood professor of chemistry at Stanford University. 

This review is taken from the memories of many including Herman Mark, Julian Hill, Charles Estee, Paul Flory, Paul Morgan publications noted as references and research done by Fred Pease. 

Flory, Paul John (1910-85) American chemist whose contribution to the understanding of the nature of polymers earned him the 1974 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Polymers are macromolecules consisting of long sequences of repetitions of small chemical groups called monomers. Many natural large molecules are polymers, as are synthetic plastics. 

Flory, Paul J., U.S.A., Stanford University, Stanford, CA "For his fundamental achievements, both theoretical and experimental, in the physical chemistry of the macromolecules."... 

DA Tomalia. Flory-Pauling Macromolecular Conference—Frontiers in Synthetic Polymer Chemistry, Santa Barbara, CA, January, 1983. 

Equations (4.98) and (4.102) are the backbone of a method describing thermodynamic properties of macromolecular systems akin to the van der Waals approach to low molecular weight systems. The lattice approach outlined here was pioneered independently by Staverman and van Santen (Stavermann and van Santen 1941), Huggins (Huggins 1941,1942) and Flory (Paul John Flory, Nobel prize in chemistry for his work on the physical chemistry of macromolecules, 1974) (Flory 1941,1942 Koningsveld and Kleintjens 1988). 

Flory, Paul John (1910-85) American polymer chemist. Flory s early work consisted of helping Wallace CAROTHERS to develop nylon and neoprene. He began to investigate the properties of polymers in the 1930s. Flory solved the difficulty that a polymer molecule does not have a fixed size and structure by using statistical techniques to calculate a distribution of polymer chain lengths. Flory also worked on polymers in which there are links between chains. This led to work on the elasticity of rubber. Flory summarized his work in the classic books Principles of Polymer Chemistry (1953) and Statistical Mechanics of Chain Molecules (1969). Flory won the 1974 Nobel Prize for chemistry for his work on polymers. 

After 1930, when the true nature of polymers was at last generally, recognised, the study of polymers expanded from being the province of organic specialists physical chemists like Paul Flory and physicists like Charles Frank became involved. In this short chapter, I shall be especially concerned to map this broadening range of research on polymers. 

Paul J. Flory. Letter to Helen Carothers. Nov. 22, 1974. Source for polymers in 1930s considered poor scientific subjects. Courtesy of Joseph Labovsky. 

David W. Ridgeway. Interview with Paul J. Flory. Journal of Chemical Education. 54 (June 1977) 341-344. Source for throw-away economy available technology and Carothers strategy. 

Among them are Haber, Planck, Nernst, Einstein, Perutz, Bernal, Staudinger, Pauling, and Flory. A man molded by the largeness of his actions, accomplishments, and contacts, he has very little regard for parochial interests. These interests in his mind include national boundries. As a result he has shared his time and knowledge, as well as, the time and experience of those under his leadership, so freely that there are polymer science establishments in nearly all the industrialized nations which in some way or another owe a part of their existence to him. 

While a number of introductory or comprehensive texts dealing with polymer chemistry were written, the most influential was probably Paul J. Flory s textbook "Principles of Polymer Chemistry", published in 1954. No prior knowledge of polymers was assumed with particular chapters directed at the beginner. It also contained much information useful to the experienced investigator. A wealth of experimental data was included to illustrate the applicability of the presented concepts and conclusions. Admittedly missing are topics related to the mechanical properties of polymers and to the application of polymers in industry - i.e. fabrication, synthesis, etc. Even so Flory s text is a landmark book in science. 

I thank the following for their direct contributions in the preparation of this paper Charles Overberger, Ray Seymour, Paul Flory, James Scott Long, Zeno Wicks, Maurice Huggins, A1 Zettle-moyer, Walter Stockmayer, Fred Elrich, Fred Billmeyer, Malcolm Renfrew, Carl Marvel and Malcolm Dole and Edgar Hardy for suggestions as to how to develop the presented material. 

When Paul Flory wrote his famous book Principles of Polymer Chemistry in 1952, he indicated an alternative scheme for polymer synthesis [1]. He theorized about synthesizing condensation polymers from multifunctional monomers. These polymers were predicted to have a broad molecular weight distribution and to be non-entangled and non-crystalline due to their highly branched structure. However, they were considered to be less interesting since they would provide materials with poor mechanical strength, and at that time Flory did not feel it was worthwhile pursuing this line of research. 

FIGURE 5.16 Spontaneous ordering of linear polymers in a semicrystalline material. Bundles of dark lines represent crystalline regions. Reprinted from Flory (1953) Paul J. Flory, Principles of Polymer Chemistry, Copyright 1953 Cornell University Press and Copyright 1981 Paul J. Flory. Used by permission of the publisher, Cornell University Press. 

In 1934 Paul Flory was hired to work with Carothers to help gain a mathematical understanding of the polymerization process and relationships. Thus, there was an early association between theory and practice or structure-property relationships. 

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