Flory

Flory is a surname and, less commonly, a given name. In science and academia, it is most closely associated with Paul J. Flory (1910–1985), an American chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1974 for his fundamental achievements in the chemistry of macromolecules and polymer science.

In polymer physics and chemistry, several influential theories bear the Flory name. The Flory–Huggins theory, developed with Maurice Huggins, is a lattice-based thermodynamic model of polymer solutions and blends that explains solubility, miscibility, and phase behavior. It remains a foundational framework for predicting when polymers will mix or demix with solvents. The Flory–Stockmayer theory, formulated with Walter Stockmayer, describes gelation and the formation of crosslinked polymer networks in step-growth polymerization.

Flory also made lasting contributions to the statistical theory of polymers. His scaling approach describes how a polymer chain’s size grows with the number of monomer units, introducing concepts such as the Flory radius and associated scaling relations that characterize polymer conformations in different solvents. The Flory–Huggins parameter, chi, encapsulates polymer–solvent interactions within the theory and is central to understanding the thermodynamics of mixtures.

Beyond these technical uses, the surname Flory appears in various scientific and cultural contexts. In technical literature, however, it most often points to Paul Flory and the polymer theories that bear his name.