If the logarithm converts multiplication to addition, thus simplifying mathematics, does exponentiation, converting addition to multiplication, "complicate" mathematics? I've only ever seen arguments for the former but never a discussion about the latter. So, do we not consider exponentiation as a "bad" thing in mathematics?
Thanks,
John Napier invented logarithms as a tool for faster more accurate multiplication. Navigation at sea uses spherical trigonometry, and that involves much multiplication. But there is much complicated work in preparing a table of logarithms, so the use of a table of logarithms to do multiplication is not really less complicated. It just reduces the number of errors of the kind that humans make, provided that the table of logarithms is itself free of errors. In the pre-computer era this was itself a difficulty.