THE KINETICS LAWS FOR POLYMER COLLAPSE AND BIOPOLYMER FOLDING

We discuss some recent ideas relating to the folding and other conform ational transitions of polymers. In particular we emphasize that it is possible to conceive the accompanying kinetic processes as a problem in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. In this sense it should be p ossible to develop such methods to deduce the kinetic laws in the vici nity of various conformational transitions. To establish the ideas we first study the well known problem of the collapse transition cf a hom opolymer. We then turn to conformational transitions in periodic and r andom copolymers. We offer a brief survey of the status of these ideas in applications to biopolymeric conformational kinetics.