The fog of complexity

One of Warren Buffett's lesser-known quotes is, "If calculus or algebra were required to be a great investor, I'd have to go back to delivering newspapers." To be a successful investor, he hasn't needed any more maths than plain old addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. However, don't tell that to the professional peddlers of complexity that seem to infest the business of convincing people to invest. The other day, I came across an advertisement for an opportunity to learn about how 'gamma' could be used for financial planning, including, apparently, for mutual fund investments. While the description of this gamma sounded suspiciously like pure snake oil, the name actually confirmed that suspicion. Why 'gamma'? The term is already used for another, apparently different piece of snake oil in options investing in the stock market. Why do purveyors of financial calculations use Greek letters t