A liquid crystal is a fluid of
rodlike molecules that line up in an orderly way.
2c and 2d), strictly speaking, the PET particles were not yet deformed into fibers, and only appeared to have a
rodlike shape.
Observed for decades in cells as
rodlike objects resembling mitochondria but lacking their own DNA, "they were looked at as a curiosity, an oddball organelle.
According to previous studi es,
rodlike polyimides exhibited higher in-plane orientation than ordinary polyimides (2-4).
Niemi and Faddeev are now studying the applicability of their model to liquid crystals, in which
rodlike molecules tend to align themselves in parallel rows, and to vortex structures in superfluid helium-3.
Spherical particles were also observed, but appeared to be composed of
rodlike entities that were wrapped around themselves in a more or less random fashion.
Researchers at Kyoto University in Japan have found that by swapping amino acids between rod and cone proteins, they can confer
rodlike properties on a cone pigment and vice versa.
LCP consists of linear, rigid,
rodlike molecules that are capable of aligning to a very high degree during melt flow and thus form an ordered phase.
The scientists interpret this as the imprint left by the animal's notochord--a
rodlike structure in primitive chordates that is related to the backbone of vertebrates.
Even though the aim of this and related works were to illuminate the interrelationship between anisotropic molecular shape and liquid crystalline phases, the description of the thermodynamics explained the experimentally established incompatibility [15, 144-150] of
rodlike and coiled polymers.
Liquid crystals are generally made up of large, mobile,
rodlike molecules that tend to organize themselves into a lattice.
If the present is any contribution at all toward such a theory, it is possibly so by establishing a few patterns in the limit of slender
rodlike linear elastic particles.