Mazur and Stein handle this by writing "log" for natural logarithm. The number e and the exponential and logarithmic functions are defined in the text. Teachers insist on all kinds of stupid things, and there's no need to take up space dealing with them. For example, in the Santa Cruz Public Schools, 1 is prime, though one teacher did point out that mathematicians say otherwise. -- Gene From: James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2015 1:56 PM Subject: Re: [math-fun] Fwd: New book: Prime Numbers and the Riemann Hypothesis Given that they're writing for high school students (among others), I would hope that they mention (at least in a footnote) that they, like most researchers, write "log" where high school teachers would insist upon "ln". Can someone who's read the book comment on how Mazur and Stein handle this? Jim On Friday, February 27, 2015, meekerdb <meekerdb@verizon.net> wrote:
On 2/26/2015 9:06 PM, James Buddenhagen wrote:
On p. 48, last line, first paragraph of Mazur/Stein book, shouldn't it be Li(X) = integral 2 to X of (1/log(t)) dt, rather than what is written?
I think you're right - I passed on your comment to Stein.
Brent