Common Logarithm - History

History

Common logarithms are sometimes also called "Briggsian logarithms" after Henry Briggs, a 17th-century British mathematician.

Because base 10 logarithms were most useful for computations, engineers generally simply wrote "log(x)" when they meant log₁₀(x). Mathematicians, on the other hand, wrote "log(x)" when they meant log_e(x) for the natural logarithm. Today, both notations are found. Since hand-held electronic calculators are designed by engineers rather than mathematicians, it became customary that they follow engineers' notation. So the notation, according to which one writes "ln(x)" when the natural logarithm is intended, may have been further popularized by the very invention that made the use of "common logarithms" far less common, electronic calculators.