Happy belated birthday to Moore’s Law, which turned 50 years old last month…but does Gordon E. Moore’s observation have legs to last another half century?

Moore’s Law, as everyone knows, is the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years. Some experts say that the speed is more like 18 months, but this year, Moore himself acknowledged that the rate of progress has nearly reached saturation.

“I see Moore’s law dying here in the next decade or so,” he told IEEE Spectrum in an interview earlier this year.

Even Moore’s Law, it seems, is subject to the Law of Diminishing Returns. It’s just not possible to keep cramming more components onto integrated circuits into eternity. That’s a lesson for all of us. In their haste to fill formulas with the trendiest ingredients, the marketing department may lose sight of the end goal.

Or, as country music icon Dolly Parton once wisely noted, “you can’t put 10 pounds of mud into a 5-pound sack.”

Real breakthroughs  in the personal and household care industry rely on chemistry, not chicanery.

The crossroad of science and art is located at the skin care counter. This multibillion-dollar category plays a critical role in maintaining the health of the global personal care industry. Beginning on p. 67, Christine Esposito looks at the latest product launches that are creating a buzz in the business, and on p. 78, there’s a list of new materials that are driving the industry forward. And next month, we’ll report on some of the newest ideas we saw at In-Cosmetics over in Barcelona, the big trade show that many suppliers use as a launch pad for their newest ingredients.

Just remember, sometimes less really is Moore, er, more.

Tom Branna
Editorial Director
[email protected]