Commentary on “Mechanical properties of monodomain side-chain nematic elastomers” by P. Martinoty,P. Stein,H. Finkelmann,H. Pleiner and H.R. Brand

We discuss the background to static and dynamic soft elasticity. The evidence in the static case and the symmetry basis for soft and semi-soft elasticity is well understood. By contrast the dynamic analogy is less clear. Lack of clean time scale separation clouds the interpretation of director relaxation keeping up, or not, with imposed strains. However, the reduction in modulus between geometries obtaining at low frequencies and being lost at high frequencies confirms that director reaction indeed determines dynamical semi-softness.Received: 13 April 2004, Published online: 17 August 2004PACS: 83.80.Va Elastomeric polymers - 61.30.-v Liquid crystals - 83.60.Bc Linear viscoelasticity