J. Weilepp et Hr. Brand, DIRECTOR REORIENTATION IN NEMATIC LIQUID-SINGLE-CRYSTAL ELASTOMERS BYEXTERNAL MECHANICAL-STRESS - REPLY, Europhysics letters, 37(7), 1997, pp. 499-501
In their comment E. M. Terentjev and M. Warner try to argue that the r
esults we obtained in ref. [1] are physically incorrect. To do this th
ey use estimates of the orders of magnitude, and their scaling with cr
oss-linking density, of a number of elastic coefficients. We point out
that their arguments are based on their misunderstanding of several b
asic concepts. First, they confuse the Landau model to describe phase
transitions with a macroscopic description of the nematic phase. Secon
d, they apply the technique of a linear stability analysis above the t
hreshold of the instability, where this type of analysis is incorrect.