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Have been experimenting with the Log function to demonstrate simple Log relationships such as Log[xy], Log[x+y] etc.
Clear[x,y,m,n];
m =b^x;
n = b^y;
Log[b,m]+Log[b,n]
The output i get is
log(b^y)/log(b)+log(b^x)/log(b)
Why is Log[b,b] not being evaluated to 1 ? Also Log[b,b^x]=x so why is it not showing this ? Also the log statements in the output have no base shown ?
I tried
Log[b,m]//Trace
which gives me
Simplify doesn't seem to do anything
Thanks David.
Log[b, b] does evaluate to 1; your error is in assuming that Log[b, b^x] is supposed to simplify automatically to x; Mathematica assumes that symbols like b and x are generically complex numbers unless told otherwise, and you should know that $\log_b b^x\neq x$ in a large region of the complex plane.
However, you can use Simplify[] and assumptions:
Simplify[Log[b, b^x], Positive[b] && Element[x, Reals]]
(* x *)
FWIW: you are aware of the change-of-base formula? Mathematica, for a number of reasons, prefers that all logarithms be expressed as natural logarithms $\log\,x$ ($\ln\,x$ in less-advanced work), and does so. So, Log[b, x] is automagically transformed to Log[x]/Log[b]. Similar transformations are done for Log2[x] and Log10[x].
