Importance of Boscovich's theory of natural philosophy for polymer science

Abstract

It has been generally accepted that the macromolecular hypothesis was for the first time presented by H. Staudinger (1920). It is shown in this article, however, that Roger Boscovich, in his monumental work "Theory of natural philosophy", as early as in the 18th century, pointed out that the spiral atomic chains could be formed. He also pointed that the shape of the chain could be markedly changed due to slight changes of the distances among the atoms. The elastic properties of the chains have been stressed. The author of this article also presented some examples of the applications of Boscovich's theory for the interpretation of free-radical polymerization of compressed ethylene gas and liquid methyl methacrylate. The priority of Boscovich's macromolecular hypothesis is doubtless and his theory is still applicable in the current polymer science.

Free Radical Polymerization of Ethylene

“…Philosophical considerations [3,4,20,21,38] were preceded by our works on ethylene polymerization about which we have published several dozen articles in journals and conference proceedings: the mechanism [12,39] and kinetics of polymerization [13,29,30], origin of polyethylene structure formation (short and long branches [28][29][30][39][40][41], unsaturated bonds [29,30,41], molecular mass [13,29,30] and its distribution [29,30]), effects of polymerization conditions on polyethylene density [29,30,41] and melting [29,30], importance of ethylene phase state for industrial process operation [42,43]. Here, we shall emphasize the main conclusions published in our articles where the details are extensively elaborated.…”