Combinatorics is the mathematics for countimg the decisions and roles available to us in a republic and market-economy as citizen-consumers. The failure of "merit testing" (supposed to make "equal opportunity" needless!) to include combinatoric problems makes a makes a mockery of "merit testing".

(On the WEB, I've a combinatorial mathtivity for children, "How to build a googol world in a shoebox".)

Combinatorics has been called "counting without counting", since it provides simple arithmetical formulas for calculating the choices without having to count them.

Unfortunately, except for a smidgin of permutations, the subject of combinatorics is not taught outside of a rare college course, and is ignored by I.Q. and S.A.T. testing!

Combinatorics was founded by the great Swiss mathematician, Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), who also founded topology. Euler also discovered a combinatorial formula which is one of the most powerful tools of topology.