> Would it be too much just to create a new function, say " log_10() ",
> for all those high school kids out there, such as moi???
There are several things like this in Maxima which are designed for
professional use, and which are different from the way things are done
in many schools. Not only is logarithm defined as the natural
logarithm instead of the base-10 logarithm, but the trigonometric
functions are defined in terms of radians, not degrees.
You might think that it would be a good idea to have a switch
somewhere that you could flip between "high-school conventions" and
"professional conventions", but that would complicate things in other
ways.
So I think the best solution is just to be aware that your conventions
are different, and have a load file supporting your conventions.
What's more, it actually seems to me that learning to define simple
functions like log10 is in itself a useful exercise. If you cannot
have that automatically load for everyone, you can load it manually
whenever you start a Maxima session.
-s