The Physics of Polymers: Concepts for Understanding Their Structures and Behavior

Rating:
Summary: surely this book is excellent
Review: however, only for real polymer scientists. for layman, I don't think this book is a good choice. For graduate students in polymer science, especially polymer physics, I always have two books to recommend: Polymer Physics by Rubinstein and Colby, and this book by Strobl. If you want to know more about viscoelastic properties of polymers, J. Ferry's classic book will be the no.1 choice and some reviews about Rouse, Zimm, Reptation are very good. Those reviews include Lodge's Adv Phy Chem, Watanabe's Prog Polym Sci, Graessley's Adv Polym Sci, and McLeish's Adv Phys. de Gennes's and Doi and Edward's books are must for serious investigators in polymer physics (I mean, real physics, not characterizations).

Rating:
Summary: A Decent, Instructive Book for Serious Students
Review: I'm no expert on polymers, but I've been exposed to a little on the subject through my work and classes, so I picked this up on sale. The beginnings of the chapters seem informative for one who wants a soundbite rather than the full meaty treatment. On a handful of occasions I've found a few numbers and figures from the book useful.

However, this is not a book for a beginner who wants to gain a little familiarity of the subject without serious study (not like, say, Saleh and Teich's optics book, where one can pick a topic and learn a little about it). When he decides to delve into theory the derivations can only be understood by sitting down and going through them by hand. It's not that steps are skipped or any other such atrocious practice, but simply that this is a book for people working hard to understand and join the field, not outsiders who want to gain some familiarity with it.

So, I'd say it's meaty but understandable for beginners who are serious about studying polymer physics, but not for people like me who encounter polymers from time to time and would like to gain a passing familiarity with the field. Also, it seems like a good reference even for experts, with the wealth of figures and charts and numbers and derivations.

Rating:
Summary: A comprehensive polymer physics book!
Review: This is a comprehensive polymer physics book, each chapter is well written with adequate depth of coverage. Most definitely the book one must pick to delve into dynamics, thermodynamics, scattering and crystallization, and get to the level of appreciating the complexity and beauty of current research and understanding in the field of polymer physics. Highly recommended!