Polymers are used for all sorts of purposes, and huge quantities of them are made throughout the world. The volume of polymers produced already exceeds that of metals.

The applications alone are a good enough to study polymers. However, it is not only their applications that make polymers so fascinating. The greatest incentive for polymer science is life itself. Even a schoolchild knows these days that our so-called genetic blueprint is contained in molecules of a special polymer, DNA. Modern biology regards a living cell as a kind of factory, finely tuned, and controlled by DNA. Meanwhile, all the working devices in this factory are based on another type of polymer called Proteins. In additiona to this polymers make hooves, horns, hair, and lots more.

  It is not just that polymers are found in abundance in nature, they actually play a crucial role. Let's think how hard it has been for the most brilliant thinkers of humankind over hundreds of years to unveil the mystery of life. Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Darwin, Bohr, but it was not until the 20th century that knowledge in biology reached the molecular level. A key discovery was of the DNA double helix by Watson and Crick in 1953. All of a sudden surprisingly simple answers to the most fundamental questions started to take shape. And it has turned out that all these answers are connected with polymers in one way or another.

 Finally, if you know about polymers, you will understand why they are so widely used in everyday life and in industry, as well as how they work in biological systems.

-by Grosberg and Khokhlov