Paul John Flory (June 19, 1910 – September 9, 1985) was an American chemist and Nobel laureate who was known for his prodigious volume of work in the field of polymers, or macromolecules. He was a leading pioneer in understanding the behavior of polymers in solution, and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1974 "for his fundamental achievements, both theoretical and experimental, in the physical chemistry of macromolecules."
After graduating from Elgin High School in Elgin, Illinois in 1927, Flory received a bachelor's degree from Manchester College (Indiana) in 1931 and a Ph.D. from the Ohio State University in 1934. His first position was at DuPont with Wallace Carothers.
Flory's earliest work in polymer science was in the area of polymerization kinetics at the DuPont Experimental station. In condensation polymerization, he challenged the assumption that the reactivity of the end group decreased as the macromolecule grew, and by arguing that the reactivity was independent of the size, he was able to derive the result that the number of chains present decreased with size exponentially. In addition polymerization, he introduced the important concept of chain transfer to improve the kinetic equations and remove difficulties in understanding the polymer size distribution.
Paul John (born 25 January 1970 in Pontypridd) is a former Wales international rugby union player with 10 caps. A scrum-half, he played his club rugby for Pontypridd RFC, where he was captain.
He retired as a player in 2005 and was, until 2010, Head Coach at Pontypridd. He is currently Assistant Coach of the Club. He is also Head Coach of the Wales Sevens team who won the 2009 Rugby World Cup Sevens.
Paul was a teacher of Physical Education (P.E.) at Bryn Celynnog Comprehensive School, before becoming a full-time coach within the Wales National Academy setup.