ABSTRACT
It is common knowledge that some properties of highly elastic and melt I'?,lymers are explained by the statistic thermodynamics of flexible polymer chains. Progress in this field has come with attempts to transfer liquid-phase notions to glassy-like and jelly-like systems. However, the structural model describing a polymer as a highmolecular liquid is inadequate for polymer objects which display the supermolecular organization of a spongy carcass binding aggregated chains. Existence of supermolecular carcass is responsible for the invalidity of the homogeneous statistical theories. For example, the features of cold flow, memory effects and non-Newton flow of melts, 2 plasticization anomalies, anti-plasticization and properties of jeUies, 3•4 sorption, 5 and the phenomenon of thermodynamic affinity splitting in the single "polymer-liquid non-solvent" pair6 are not explained by conventional theories.
