The Language of Shape: The Role of Curvature in Condensed Matter: Physics, Chemistry and Biology

The book offers an overview of these structures and structural transformations, convincingly demonstrating their ubiquity in covalent frameworks from zeolites used for cracking oil and pollution control to enzymes and structural proteins, thermotropic and lyotropic bicontinuous mesophases formed by surfactants, detergents and lipids, synthetic block copolymer and protein networks, as well as biological cell assemblies, from muscles to membranes in prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. The relation between structure and function is analysed in terms of the previously neglected hidden variables of curvature and topology. Thus, the catalytic activity of zeolites and enzymes, the superior material properties of interpenetrating networks in microstructured polymer composites, the transport requirements in cells, the transmission of nerve signals and the folding of DNA can be more easily understood in the light of this.

The text is liberally sprinkled with figures and colour plates, making it accessible to both the beginning graduate student and researchers in condensed matter physics and chemistry, mineralogists, crystallographers and biologists.