This Account describes how stereochemical ideas focused on chirality have b
een directed widely across polymer science allowing experiments that could
not be conducted on small molecules and leading to new insights and new kin
ds of materials. In one approach, a helical polymer was studied, and it was
discovered how the chiral information necessary to choose helical sense is
greatly amplified. In another approach, the racemization kinetics of atrop
isomers were used to characterize the restrictions to motion;associated wit
h a polyelectrolyte that forms clusters around hydrophobic groups in water
and in an entirely different system, the glassy state formed by polymers.