Because of the enormous economic and technological importance of rubber, predicting how a molecular network responds to mechanical strains has been of enduring interest to scientists and engineers. To understand the elastic properties of rubber, theoretically, it is necessary to know both the physical mechanisms that occur at the molecular level and how the random-walk nature of the polymer chain defines the network. The physical mechanisms that occur within short sections of the polymer chains produce the elastic forces and the network morphology determines how these forces combine to produce the macroscopic stress that is observed when a rubber sample is deformed (e.g. subjected to tensile strain).