The physics of long flexible chains was pioneered by several great scientists: Debye, Kuhn, Kramers, Flory, and so forth. They constructed the basic ideas; those concerning static properties are summarized in Flory's book,1 and those concerning dynamics in various reviews.z-3-4 More recently, a second stage in the physics of polymers has evolved, because of the availability of new experimental and theoretical tools. As usual, these new techniques brought about some important changes in our viewpoints.