Elmer's Rubber Cement is not the vulcanizing kind!

Tom Keats wrote:
In article ,
Michael Press writes:
In article ,
(Tom Keats) wrote:

In article ,
Michael Press writes:
In article ,
(Tom Keats) wrote:

Now I'm wondering
how those long polymers find their ways into their holes
or ruts or whatever allows them to interdigitate -- do
they just fall in when a hole opens up beneath them,
or do they just randomly flow around until they drop
into a hole/rut/whatever? If they're electrically drawn
in, could that arguably be a chemical process?
Physically it is similar to interleaving the pages of
two books.
Interleaving the pages of two books requires thought
and intention and maybe a little cleverness, if the
job is to be done neatly, without collisions.

What forces are at work with this interdigitation/
interleaving? What downright ~makes~ polymers
first agree to interdigitate, and then move around
to align themselves accordingly? Or is this just
another one of those axiomatic things?

Adjacent books don't suddenly decide to interleave
their pages, neither does a jumbled pile of bricks
decide to form a chimney. So I'm having difficulty
with the concept of molecular chains somehow elegantly
and neatly (but non-chemically) organizing themselves
by dint of their proximity to each other.

We're being told one substance somehow molecularly
intimates and intermingles itself with another
similar substance, and yet the process is not
chemical.

BTW, as a preemptive afterthought: Jim Beam and the
horse he rode into town on can both enjoy precious
moments with their respective selves.

Or each other, if they're into that.
The interleaved page analogy is to illustrate
the scale of the forces at work. You did not know that?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

But exactly ~what~ forces are at work?
That is my question.

you've been told three times now. if you don't get it, you have either
a fundamental education gap somewhere back in junior school, or you're
just too damned dim.

either way, if you can read and still don't understand, just give up
because this stuff is clearly beyond you.



We stick a patch on a tube, maybe press it on
a little, leave it overnight, and when we look
at it the next day, the patch is pancaked right
on there as if it had been in a clamp.

I realize the patch isn't chemically integrated
with the inner tube rubber. But it does seem to
be more mechanically squashed onto the tube than
by the thumb pressure that initially installed it
into place. I'm just curious as to what does that.

I'm guessing that as the more volatile stuff in
the cement evaporates, the remaining cement
somehow shrinks, thereby pulling interdigitated
patch & inner tube together. But that's just a
guess on my part, and guessing ain't knowing.
Shrinkage of the cement at least provides an
explanation for the movement necessary for the
process.

I think wet newspaper pages are stuck together by
air pressure and maybe a li'l static electricity
largely introduced by foreign material and dust on
the paper. But I'm probably wrong about that, too.
It would be nice to know what's really going on.


cheers,
Tom

Still Just Me wrote:
On Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:48:46 -0700, jim beam
wrote:

you've been told three times now. if you don't get it, you have either
a fundamental education gap somewhere back in junior school, or you're
just too damned dim.

Yeah Tom, Jebus H Christ! What'd you sleep through glue properties
class in 8th grade?

not materials, reading comprehension. like you apparently. moron.