POLYMER PHYS: 25 YRS OF THE EDWARDS ...

The proceedings of this workshop contains 5 important papers by S A Edwards on the Edwards Model and includes discussions on recent theoretical developments in polymer physics.A few decades ago, polymers were not considered part of conventional physics. However, the scenario changed drastically in the sixties and seventies with the introduction of path integral methods, fields theory in the n → limits, and renormalization group approach. A vital step in this progress is the path integral Hamiltonian that S F Edwards proposed in 1965-66 to study a single chain. This model now called the Edwards model, is considered to be the minimal model for polymers, and it has been phenomenal in unraveling the universal properties of polymers, be it a single chain or many, equilibrium or dynamics. It has now crossed the boundary of polymers and is finding applications through appropriate generalizations in many other problems.