Somehow it's something to do with simplifying part of the Nernst Equation to a constant.They "pre-compute" the gas constant to faraday constant ratio , and assume 37°C, physiological temperature.
They simplify this part of the Nernst Equation:
1.) Separate out the Charge of the Ion Variable:
2.) Change Division to Multiplication of Inverse:
3.) Cancel Units:
4.) Simplify:
5.) We are left with:
6.) Rewriting the Nernst Equation with our Simplified Constants:
7.) Here is where I get confused though. They are changing the base of the logarithm from "e" to 10. But I don't understand "why" they are doing it. This change of base stuff still confuses me:
Our base is "e" because we started with the natural log version
Since these are all equivalent:
We can rewrite it as:
8.) Finally, we can rewrite the Nernst Equation in the "log base 10" form:
This is the only rational I could find on duckduckgo images. Its just a preference/convenience thing?