M. Muthukumar has recently published an article in an online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Attempts to characterize charged macromolecules using light scattering have resulted in mysterious effects over the past six decades. The diffusion coefficients of polymers with molecular weight of about 1 million can be merely one-fourth of those of metallic ions such as K+, independent of polymer molecular weight and concentration. Similarly charged macromolecules can clump together to make aggregates when electrostatic repulsion between them is dominant. A new theory is proposed to explain these extraordinary phenomena.
