What is a polymer
What is a polymer
Polymers are everywhere. Just look around. Your plastic water bottle. The silicone rubber tips on your phone’s earbuds. The nylon and polyester in your jacket or sneakers. The rubber in the tires on the family car. Now take a look in the mirror. Many proteins in your body are polymers, too. Consider keratin (KAIR-uh-tin), the stuff your hair and nails are made from. Even the DNA in your cells is a polymer.
By definition, polymers are large molecules made by bonding (chemically linking) a series of building blocks. The word polymer comes from the Greek words for “many parts.” Each of those parts is scientists call a monomer (which in Greek means “one part”). Think of a polymer as a chain, with each of its links a monomer. Those monomers can be simple — just an atom or two or three — or they might be complicated ring-shaped structures containing a dozen or more atoms.
In an artificial polymer, each of the chain’s links will often be identical to its neighbors. But in proteins, DNA and other natural polymers, links in the chain often differ from their neighbors.
Polymers are everywhere. Just look around. Your plastic water bottle. The silicone rubber tips on your phone’s earbuds. The nylon and polyester in your jacket or sneakers. The rubber in the tires on the family car. Now take a look in the mirror. Many proteins in your body are polymers, too. Consider keratin (KAIR-uh-tin), the stuff your hair and nails are made from. Even the DNA in your cells is a polymer.
By definition, polymers are large molecules made by bonding (chemically linking) a series of building blocks. The word polymer comes from the Greek words for “many parts.” Each of those parts is scientists call a monomer (which in Greek means “one part”). Think of a polymer as a chain, with each of its links a monomer. Those monomers can be simple — just an atom or two or three — or they might be complicated ring-shaped structures containing a dozen or more atoms.
In an artificial polymer, each of the chain’s links will often be identical to its neighbors. But in proteins, DNA and other natural polymers, links in the chain often differ from their neighbors.
