Re: Why isn't the symbol of a natural logarithm nl instead of ln?

Dear Michele,

According to a website by Jeff Miller (an aficionado of word trivia and mathematical history), the symbol ln "was used in 1893 by Irving Stringham (1847-1909) in Uniplanar Algebra (Cajori vol. 2, page 107)." This may or may not be the earliest such use, but does establish that ln has been in use for over a century.

However, in modern notation, log is often assumed to be the natural logarithm, because the natural log occurs frequently in mathematics (e.g. as the integral of 1/x). The log₁₀ does not occur that often. As for the etymology of ln, it may well be because Stringham simply decided to call it that, and everyone else just went along.

Hope that answers your question. Good luck with your calculus class

Your MAD Scientist,
Raymond Cheong

References

Miller, Jeff. "Earliest Uses of Function Symbols." http://members.aol.com /jeff570/functions.html 12 May 1999.