This chapter shows how the great power and versatility of anionic polymerization, which has been described in the rest of this book, has been used to develop an improved understanding of the basic physical principles that underlie the performance of polyolefin materials. When these synthetic tools are employed to polymerize dienes and are then combined with controlled saturation methods, a wide panoply of saturated hydrocarbon polymers can be made. These products can serve as models for commercial polyolefins, which is the most widely used class of synthetic polymers and which continues to develop at a strong pace. The ability to make such models with highly controlled chain architectures, plus the ability to label the molecules for use in techniques such as NMR and neutron scattering, has provided polymer physicists with means to understand polyolefin physics at a deep level. This has been used to determine the size of polyolefin chains (both in dilute solution and in melt state), the ways that polyolefins mix, how their rheology depends on the chemical structure of the chains, and how long branches control their performance. This chapter covers not only the scientific results of this research, but also how these can be applied in the development of novel, useful polyolefin products.