solids, liquids, plasmas, and other complex matter, whereas "solid state physics" was often associated with restricted industrial applications of metals and semiconductors. In the 1960s and 70s, some physicists felt the more comprehensive name better fit the funding environment and Cold War politics of the time.

References to "condensed" states can be traced to earlier sources. For example, in the introduction to his 1947 book Kinetic Theory of Liquids, Yakov Frenkel