高分子化学专业外语.doc

PART A Polymer Chemistry ＆Physics UNIT 1 What are Polymers? What are polymers? For one thing, they are complex and giant molecules and are different from low molecular weight compounds like, say, common salt. To contrast the difference, the molecular weight of common salt is only 58. 5, while that of a polymer can be as high as several hundred thousands, even more than thousand thousands. These big molecules or macro-molecules are made up of much smaller molecules. The small molecules, which combine to form a big molecule, can be of one or more chemical compounds. To illustrate, imagine