Between June 6-10, 1988, the Third Chemical Congress of North America was held at the Toronto Convention Center. At this rare gathering, fifteen thousand scientists attended various symposia. In one of the symposia, Professor Pierre-Gilles de Gennes of College de France was honored as the 1988 recipient of the Amer ican Chemical Society Polymer Chemistry Award, sponsored by Mobil Chemical Corporation. For Professor de Gennes, this international setting could not be more fitting. For years, he has been a friend and a lecturer to the world scientific community. Thus, for this special occasion, his friends came to recount many of his achievements or report new research findings mostly derived from his theories or stimulated by his thoughts. In this volume of Proceedings, titled New Trends in Physics and Physical Chemistry of Polymers, we are glad to present the revised papers for the Symposium and some contributed after the Symposium. In addition, we intend to include most of the lively discussions that took plaGe during the conference. This volume contains a total of thirty-six papers divided into six parts, primarily according to the nature of the subject matter: ¿ Adsorption of Colloids and Polymers. ¿ Adhesion, Fractal and Wetting of Polymers. ¿ Dynamics and Characterization of Polymer Solutions. ¿ Diffusion and Interdiffusion of Polymers. ¿ Entanglement and Reptation of Polymer Melts and Networks. ¿ Phase Transitions and Gel Electrophoresis.

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One: Adsorption of Colloids and Polymers.- Pierre-Gilles De Gennes - 1988 Recipient of the ACS Award in Polymer Chemistry.- Dynamics of Adsorbed Polymers.- Equilibrium Structure of the Fluid Interface.- Displacement of Homopolymer From a Surface by a Block Copolymer.- The Modification of Surface Forces by Grafted Polymer Chains.- Persistence Length in Microemulsion Systems.- Polymer Adsorption at The Solid-Liquid Interface: The Interfacial Concentration Profile.- Chiral Discrimination in Monolayer Packing of Hexadecanol-thiophosphoryl-2-phenylglycinol with Two Chiral Centers in the Polar Head-Group.- Discussion.- Two: Adhesion, Fractal and Wetting Of Polymers.- New Perspectives on Polymer Adhesion Mechanisms.- Dynamics and Fractal Structure of Polymer Interfaces.- Size Exclusion Chromatography and Surface Effects in Porous Fractals.- Dry Spreading of Polymer Liquids on Solid Surfaces: Role of Long Range Forces, Precursor Film Profiles and Specific Polymeric Effects.- Wetting Phenomena.- Applications of Hard-Soft Acid-Base (HSAB) Principle to Solid Adhesion and Surface Interactions Between Metals and Polymers.- Discussion.- Three: Dynamics and Characterization of Polymer Solutions.- Diffusion of Polymer in Binary and Ternary Semidilute Solutions.- The Scaling Laws in Ternary Systems: Polymer-Polymer-Good Solvent An Experimental Study.- Excimer Studies of Polymer Solutions Over the Entire Concentration Range.- Polymers at Interfaces: A Study by Neutron Reflection.- Theory of Dynamic Screening in Macromolecular Solutions.- Tracer Diffusion in Polymer-like Networks.- Dynamical Properties of Semidilute Polymer Solutions at the Theta Temperature.- Discussion.- Four: Diffusion and Interdiffusion of Polymers.- Self-consistent Fields and Critical Exponents for Polymers.- Diffusion in Block Copolymers and Isotopic Polymer Mixtures.- Mutual Diffusion in the Miscible Polymer Blend: Polystyrene: Poly(xylenyl ether).- Self-diffusion of Poly(dimethylsiloxane) Chains.- Chain Segment Ordering in Strained Rubbers.- Viscoelasticity and Self-diffusion in Miscible Heteropolymer Blends.- Discussion.- Five: Entanglement and Reptation of Polymer Melts and Networks.- Molecular Weight Dependence of the Viscosity of a Homogeneous Polymer Melt.- Dynamics of Entangled Polymers: Reptation.- The Entanglement Concept in Polymer Physics Revisited.- Repton Model of Entangled Polymers.- On the Effect of Positional Order on the Scattering by Copolymers and Networks with Labeled Crosslinks.- Calculation of Elastic Small-Angle Neutron Scattering from Labeled Gels.- Discussion.- Six: Phase Transitions and Gel Electrophoresis.- Phase Transitions in Polymer Solutions.- Percolation Type Growth Process of Clusters Near the Gelation Threshold.- The Biased Reptation Model of DNA Gel Electrophoresis.- Final Remarks.- Conformation of a Polymer in Liquid Crystal Polymer.- Discussion.- Append.- List of Publications (1956-1988) by P.G. de Gennes.- About the Contributors.- Author Index.