As a young Engineering student (not so) many years ago, I studied arcane subjects such as Dynamics, Euler's Equation, Statics, Mohr's Circle, the Hazen-Williams Formula, and so on. All of this was for one reason---to use very complex principles of science to design simple things like storm drains and parking garages. Designing them took a fair number of calculations, but building them wasn't too hard, and using them was brainless.

The stock market, too, is pretty simple. We sell parts of companies to each other in a marketplace that matches buyers and sellers. Companies have financial reports that are created by accountants who sift through tons of data and break them down into balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements. Analysts can then predict a company's future earnings. Hard to understand? No, it isn't.

Of course, if you want to MAKE it complicated, you certainly can. Just read the annual report and prospectus of the Annuity Mutual Fund my insurance agent sold me. I never did understand it, which is why I pulled out and paid through the nose in withdrawal fees. I won't mention the company, but Snoopy should be ashamed. Of course I was a novice. The more experienced can dabble in commodities, futures, LEAPS, index options, and--- as you advance up the complexity scale---derivatives, which aren't even understood by the people who make them!

It's like--what if you bought a house with a toilet that required you to work the Chezy Equation every time you flushed it? Unless you were an engineer with a trusty HP-41 calculator, you couldn't do it. You'd have to hire to someone like me to "advise you" every time you needed to "freshen up," and hey, I wouldn't work cheap. Now isn't that interesting? Maybe the Wise do have something. . . .

But it's too bad for them that Fools have appeared. We not only flush our own toilets, we even pick our own stocks with some absurdly easy (and Foolish) principles. The Beating The Dow and Investing For Growth approaches don't require four semesters of Calculus to understand, which is good because I hated Calculus. No fancy charts, no Elliot Wave Theory (whatever that is), no turgid mutual fund prospectuses, and no advisory fees to the Wise.

However simple and Foolish our principles may be, Sir Isaac Newton would certainly be proud of us. The heart of scientific analysis is having PROOF of what you say, and ours is posted every day with the Fool Portfolio. If Isaac were around today he might be adding yet another law, the Foolish Law of Gravity: "What goes up will keep going up, if you use Foolish Principles and have patience." So, Fool On! And, guys, remember to put the seat down.