What makes all these different? Each connects with a different kind of human-made polymer that we encounter in our homes every day. Click around the screen with your mouse to find the eight different types of polymers!

The simple, repeating chemical structure of polyethylene—a chain of carbon atoms, each bonded to a pair of hydrogen atoms—typifies the building-block nature of polymers. Silicon, too, can form polymer chains, as it does in many of the minerals that form the earth’s crust.

© 1997 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.