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In mathematics, the logarithm of a number is the exponent by which another fixed value, the base, must be raised to produce that number.For example, the logarithm of 1000 to base 10 is 3, because 1000 is 10 to the 3 rd power: 1000 = 10 3 = 10 × 10 × 10.
Subsequently, an industry of making logarithms arose as "logaritmotechnia", the title of works by Nicholas Mercator (1668), [12] Euclid Speidell (1688), [13] and John Craig (1710). [ 14 ] By use of the geometric series with its conditional radius of convergence , an alternating series called the Mercator series expresses the logarithm function ...
Logarithms and exponentials with the same base cancel each other. This is true because logarithms and exponentials are inverse operations—much like the same way multiplication and division are inverse operations, and addition and subtraction are inverse operations.
The natural logarithm of a number is its logarithm to the base of the mathematical constant e, which is an irrational and transcendental number approximately equal to 2.718 281 828 459. [1]
Positive numbers less than 1 have negative logarithms. For example, = = + + = To avoid the need for separate tables to convert positive and negative logarithms back to their original numbers, one can express a negative logarithm as a negative integer characteristic plus a positive mantissa.
A graph of logarithmic growth. In mathematics, logarithmic growth describes a phenomenon whose size or cost can be described as a logarithm function of some input. e.g. y = C log (x).
In mathematics, for given real numbers a and b, the logarithm log b a is a number x such that b x = a.Analogously, in any group G, powers b k can be defined for all integers k, and the discrete logarithm log b a is an integer k such that b k = a.
Semi-log plot of the Internet host count over time shown on a logarithmic scale. A logarithmic scale (or log scale) is a method used to display numerical data that spans a broad range of values, especially when there are significant differences between the magnitudes of the numbers involved.