MARK MY WORD: FORGET CALCULUS, MATH ADDS UP FOR 6-YEAR-OLD

Math can be mesmerizing when you're 6.

Our daughter, Becca, has discovered addition.

Becca deals in big numbers. They don't add up to much numerically, but they take up a lot of space on a piece of paper.

Right now, she keeps her totals under 10. But it won't be long until she's ready for higher math, which means she'll want an allowance.

Joni and I are thrilled that our daughter is interested in math.

We figure she is starting at a disadvantage because her parents are journalists.

We're writers. We don't crunch numbers unless we have to do a budget story. Even then, we would just as soon write around the total as try to calculate some sum down to the last penny.

The World Book Encyclopedia carries a whole section on mathematics.

"Mathematics is one of the most useful and fascinating divisions of human knowledge," it points out.

According to the encyclopedia, mathematics is difficult to define because it includes so many topics of study.

Journalism is not one of them.

Mathematics comes from a Greek word that means "inclined to learn."

Even reporters are inclined to learn. It's just that we prefer to do our learning with letters instead of numbers.

Thankfully, society invented calculators so that the world's math-challenged masses could add and subtract without breaking a single pencil.

Even with calculators, our political leaders have trouble keeping track of all that tax money we send to Washington.

No one is certain exactly how much money is in the federal bank account except for Alan Greenspan.

Greenspan heads up the Federal Reserve Board, which was created so bankers would have something to complain about besides the weather.

At this point, Becca is dealing with basic math, which can be useful if you are trying to count candy bars.

When she gets older, she'll learn that you can't just add up all the numbers. You have to do algebra too.

Algebra was invented so that "x and y" wouldn't be left out of the equation. This kind of math requires a lot of parentheses.

Calculus is another form of math. It was invented so that engineers and physics professors would have something to do.

Actually, English scientist Sir Isaac Newton is credited with inventing calculus in the mid-1660s.

Of course, if it wasn't for the apple, Newton probably would have been just a normal guy.

Statistics is another area of math. This one involves collecting lots of baseball batting averages and other numbers that we otherwise would throw away.

Math has been around as long as we've had fingers. For some people, math was a sticky business.

Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher, believed everything could be explained in terms of numbers. Obviously, he never saw our bank account.

As for Becca, she's content to count. For her, it all adds up.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.