Under-standing Polymers

The long molecules called polymers are the stuff that wool and rubber and plastics are made of, and few people understand them better than Dartmouth chemist Walter Stockmayer. It was Stocky who developed a technique to determine the molecular structures of polymers by scattering blue and green light through them in solution. A whole class of fluids, mathematically described by Stockmayer, is now known as "generalized Stockmayer fluids." The math behind the fluids also has a name: the Stockmayer potential for polar molecules.

Among those who have expressed gratitude for the professor's research: the plastics industry, and President Ronald Reagan who in 1987 conferred on Stockmayer the National Medal of Science.