The Teaching of Indices and Logarithms

Extract

I propose to give you in outline the short course on Indices and Logarithms taken at the present time by the Upper Fifth Form at the Holloway County School. Soon I hope it may be attempted by the Lower Fifth Forms, and, later on, perhaps by kind permission of the examining authority, it may be found possible to include it in the work of the Fourth Forms.

§ 1. Index Notation.—Let a denote any positive numerical quantity, and n any positive integer. Then “ x a” means “ multiplied n times in succession by a.” “aⁿ” alone means “1 x aⁿ”, i.e. “unity multiplied n times in succession by a.” The index n tells us the number of multiplications.