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The history of logarithms is the story of a correspondence (in modern terms, a group isomorphism) between multiplication on the positive real numbers and addition on the real number line that was formalized in seventeenth century Europe and was widely used to simplify calculation until the advent of the digital computer.
For example, one can multiply a sine that is less than 0.5 by some power of two or ten to bring it into the range [0.5,1]. After finding that logarithm in the radical table, one adds the logarithm of the power of two or ten that was used (he gives a short table), to get the required logarithm. [1]: p. 36
A logarithmic timeline is a timeline laid out according to a logarithmic scale. This necessarily implies a zero point and an infinity point, neither of which can be displayed. The most natural zero point is the Big Bang, looking forward, but the most common is the ever-changing present, looking backward. (Also possible is a zero point in the ...
Visual representation of the Logarithmic timeline in the scale of the universe. This timeline shows the whole history of the universe, the Earth, and mankind in one table. Each row is defined in years ago, that is, years before the present date, with the earliest times at the top of the chart. In each table cell on the right, references to ...
Logarithms can be used to make calculations easier. For example, two numbers can be multiplied just by using a logarithm table and adding. These are often known as logarithmic properties, which are documented in the table below. [2] The first three operations below assume that x = b c and/or y = b d, so that log b (x) = c and log b (y) = d.
For example, log 10 (5986) is approximately 3.78 . The next integer above it is 4, which is the number of digits of 5986. Both the natural logarithm and the binary logarithm are used in information theory, corresponding to the use of nats or bits as the fundamental units of information, respectively. [8]
The 19 degree pages from Napier's 1614 table of logarithms of trigonometric functions Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio. The term Napierian logarithm or Naperian logarithm, named after John Napier, is often used to mean the natural logarithm. Napier did not introduce this natural logarithmic function, although it is named after him.
A logarithmic number system (LNS) is an arithmetic system used for representing real numbers in computer and digital hardware, especially for digital signal processing. Overview [ edit ]