Popularization of science typically follows the lead of scientific research, conveying to lay audiences ideas and discoveries initially published in professional scientific literature and vetted by the expert community. The physicist George Gamow (1904–1968) did not respect this tradition, but promoted some of his most unorthodox scientific hypotheses as funny stories in his popular writings for non-specialists and teenagers, sometimes years before he dared to present them to the purview of academic peers in papers submitted to specialized research journals. Gamow’s proposal of the Big Bang cosmology—the theory that our universe started out in an explosive manner from a superhot and superdense state with thermonuclear reactions forming matter—was discussed by him initially in a series of non-serious articles and books, starting in 1938. Historians of cosmology recognize Gamow’s crucial contribution to the development of the Big Bang theory on the grounds of his subsequent professional publications but have not paid sufficient attention to his popular science writings and their role in changing our conception of the universe.

Collectivist philosophy inspired David Bohm's research program in physics in the late 1940s and early 1950s, which laid foundations for the modern theory of plasma and for a new stage in the development of the quantum theory of metals. Bohm saw electrons in plasma and in metals as capable of combining collective action with individual freedom, a combination that he pursued in his personal and political life. Mathematical models of such complex states of freedom, developed by Bohm and other socialist-minded physicists (Yakov Frenkel, Lev Landau, Igor Tamm), transformed the physics of condensed matter and led to the introduction of a new fundamental physical concept, collective excitations or quasiparticles. Together, these contributions illustrate the impact of socialist thought on the development of physics during the last century.