Structured Fluids: Polymers, Colloids, Surfactants [Hardcover]

Thomas A. Witten (Author), Philip A. Pincus (Contributor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0198526881 | ISBN-13: 978-0198526889 | Publication Date: March 25, 2004

Over the last thirty years, the study of liquids containing polymers, surfactants or colloidal particles has developed from a loose assembly of facts into a coherent discipline with substantial predictive power. These liquids expand our conception of what condensed matter can do. Such structured-fluid phenomena dominate the physical environment within living cells. This book teaches how to think of these fluids from a unified point of view, showing the far-reaching effects of thermal fluctuations in producing forces and motions. Keeping mathematics to a minimum, the book seeks the simplest explanations that account for the distinctive scaling properties of these fluids. An example is the growth of viscosity of a polymer solution as the cube of the molecular weight of the constituent polymers. Another is the hydrodynamic radius of a colloidal aggregate, which remains comparable to its geometrical radius even though the density of particles in the aggregate becomes arbitrarily small. The book aims for a simplicity, unity and depth not found in previous treatments. The text is supplemented by numerous figures, tables and problems to aid the student.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Structural Fluids is well constructed and a pleasure to readStructural Fluids will be widely used and will be a must read for any student of soft condensed matter physics. Even practicing condensed matter physicists will gain a great deal of insight from it, and I predict it will become a fixture of many bookshelves. It certainly is on mine."--David Weitz, Physics Today

About the Author

Thomas A. Witten was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan and a staff scientist at Exxon Research and Engineering before joining the University of Chicago in 1989 as a professor of physics.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198526881
• ISBN-13: 978-0198526889
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #657,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More information on Structured Fluids, February 8, 2005

By 

Thomas A. Witten (Chicago, Illinois) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Structured Fluids: Polymers, Colloids, Surfactants (Hardcover)

For errata and further information on Structured Fluids, see the author's web site
http://jfi.uchicago.edu/~tten/StructuredFluids/

I hope you find this useful.... T. Witten, Author.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lucid, intuitive text for Soft Matter enthusiasts!, October 2, 2005

By 

Vivek Sharma "Kavi" (Cambridge / Boston, MA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Structured Fluids: Polymers, Colloids, Surfactants (Hardcover)

Structured Fluids relies more on presenting the physical picture than mathematical machinery, stresses more on intuition and scaling concepts than on derivations and obstrusive pages of equations. In doing so, it makes itself easier to grasp than say the texts by Chaikin and Lubensky or for that matter by Kleman and Lavrentovich. The formalism is done with enough depth, to benefit both beginners and experts of the field, and thus the book is better suited for graduate student course than say RAL Jones or Hamley's texts.

The essential knowledge related to polymers, colloids and surfactants is in here, and the book is fairly upto date with recent advances in these areas. The references listed at the end of each chapter are most useful pointers for anyone who seeks to delve deeper into the mysteries of soft matter. In fact, reading this text reminds one of the style of de Gennes, and having been written in the same spirit by these very illustrous scientists, the book is comprehensive and erudite in content and presentation.

The book starts off by talking about fundamentals, including elements of statistical physics and experimental probes used to investigate the soft matter. This sets stage for discussion of various themes related to say

polymers, where random walk statistics capture essential physics required to describe a coil, scaling concepts and basic thermodynamics tells about coil dimensions in different solvents and extension of brownian dynamics explains mobility of chains. The corresponding experimental tools of light scattering and viscosity highlight how these can be measured.

colloids, where the nature of interaction between colloidal particles determines their static and dynamic behavior, leading to experimentally observed self-assembly and aggregation.

interfaces, where basics of surface tension come in to explain behavior of colloids and polymers near walls and interfaces.

surfactants, which borrows principles from previous chapters, exhibiting rich phase behavior dictated by statistical thermodynamics, dynamics related to solvent quality and aggregation dependent on aggregation.

A must read for everyone interested, active (and maybe even for experts) in the field!