“If a man can make a better mousetrap than his neighbour…the world will make a beaten path to his door.” That quotation, which was apparently inspired by a comment that the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson made during a lecture in 1871, has long been used to illustrate the power of invention and innovation. While the lowly mousetrap may hardly seem the pinnacle of technology in today’s world of iPhones and Blu-ray DVDs, an effective tool to kill mice was certainly a desirable object in Emerson’s day (p52; print version only).

But what the quotation fails to underline is the fact that inventing a new product is only ever the first step if it is to succeed. The product — be it a mousetrap, gamma-ray detector or high-voltage power supply — needs to be well built, reliable, cost-effective and simple to use. An efficient manufacturing process is required and the product needs to be backed by effective sales and marketing efforts if it is to sell in sufficient quantities that a company can turn a profit from it.

While scientists play a key role in the process of invention, sadly many physicists — mainly those in academia — too often regard this as the zenith of activity, rather than just a start. John Bardeen, who was born 100 years ago next month, rightly deserved his first Nobel prize for helping to invent the transistor while working at Bell Labs (see “John Bardeen: an extraordinary physicist”). But he gave up on developing the technology a few years later after William Shockley, his boss at the time, prevented him from taking the research much further. It was others who actually turned the transistor from what he correctly saw then as a mere laboratory gadget into a commercial device.

One problem for physicists in industry is that what they do is often obscured by the contributions of those they work with, particularly engineers. Indeed, many physicists take on jobs where they are called “engineers”. Physicists who leave academia also end up being fragmented across a huge range of business sectors, from optics and semiconductors to energy, medical physics, aerospace and defence. There is no such thing as the “physics industry” even though physics itself is crucial to what many technology-based firms do.

All of which makes it hard for a publication like Physics World to report on physics in industry. It does not help that physicists in industry often do not have time to — or are not allowed to — speak to reporters or write articles for the media. Commercial confidentiality can be a barrier to coverage as well. However, more than half of the lead articles in our Careers section have been by or about physicists in industry over the last three years, while our monthly Innovation column (p5; print version only) flags research that could — or is just about to — come onto the market. A new series of technology focuses — on sensors, microscopy, semiconductors and optics — will also appear online at physicsworld.com over the coming months.

The question remains, though, exactly what is physics in industry? Does it matter that, say, the author of this month’s feature on new forms of spray technology, inspired by the bombardier beetle (see “Insect inspiration”), is not a physicist but an applied mathematician by training? Does it matter that what he does could be termed engineering? At the fringes, where physics shades off into other disciplines, it is a difficult call to make and deciding whether to cover such work is ultimately a question of editorial judgement. Something may not be straight physics, but if it is likely to interest physicists at a professional level, that surely is the deciding factor.