Monofilament, What does it mean

[Tavery5]

Hey guys, I have to admit that for a while now I have been more than a little confused by the term "Monofilament" as it applies to fishing line. It appears to me that this term has been used and become associated with the older nylon type lines that we grew up using. It does by definition cover those older nylon type lines ,but I believe that it also covers by definition allot of the newer style lines also, such as Fluorocarbon and Copolymers. What does monofilament mean, basically it means a single strand, so using that definition it would apply to most fishing lines other than braid and fused type lines, that use more than strand.

So what is the difference between a nylon monofilament line, and a copolymer monofilament line. My understanding is this, nylon line is made from a single polymer, or monomer if you prefer. And if you were to give it a graphical representation it would look like this. A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A . Copolymers on the other hand use multiple monomers and combine them at the molecular level, through a process called copolyimerzation. There are several different flavors or these copolymer blends but they can be reperesented here for sake of arguement to look something like this AAA BBB AAA BBB AAA BBB AAA BBB. By using different monomers, the makers of fishing line can control different aspects of the fishing line such as abrasion resistance, limpness, and to a degree line diameter.
So what about a Fluorocarbon coated copolymer line. My understanding is this, it is still considered a monofilament line. It can be represented here by something that looks like this.
FC FC FC FC FC FC FC FC FC FC FC FC FC
AAA BBB AAA BBB AAA BBB AAA BBB AAA
FC FC FC FC FC FC FC FC FC FC FC FC FC

If is basically a coating applied to the copolymer line in this case.

I would like to discuss Fluorocarbon lines and what makes them different at some point as well, but thought that this was starting to get kinda long winded and had allot of different areas to discuss as is.

I would love some input on this, as I am no chem eng. or anything, this has just been something that has interested me for a while and I have been trying to piece it together.