This assumption would require that the viscosity increases with reducing coil radius which is simply unphysical. Furthermore, the notion that polymer chains extend to reduce the viscosity implies that an increasing chain size results in a reduced viscosity is addressed. Typical values of n enable the measured reduction in coils size behavior to be fitted. Furthermore, the thermal expansion coefficients determine the variation in the power law exponents that are measured for different polymer systems. The viscosity-radius of gyration relationship is found to be \(\) where n is the power law exponent. Here, scaling arguments and experimental evidence from the literature are used to determine the relationship between the viscosity, η, and chain radius of gyration, R G. Recent experimental evidence has shown that polymer chains compress in Couette flow in a manner counter to expectation. A key assumption of polymer physics is that the random chain polymers extend in flow.
