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Unlike a linear scale where each unit of distance corresponds to the same increment, on a logarithmic scale each unit of length is a multiple of some base value raised to a power, and corresponds to the multiplication of the previous value in the scale by the base value. In common use, logarithmic scales are in base 10 (unless otherwise specified).
The logarithm keys (log for base-10 and ln for base-e) on a typical scientific calculator. The advent of hand-held calculators largely eliminated the use of common logarithms as an aid to computation. The numerical value for logarithm to the base 10 can be calculated with the following identities: [5]
The logarithm keys (LOG for base 10 and LN for base e) on a TI-83 Plus graphing calculator. Logarithms are easy to compute in some cases, such as log 10 (1000) = 3. In general, logarithms can be calculated using power series or the arithmetic–geometric mean, or be retrieved from a precalculated logarithm table that provides a fixed precision.
The identities of logarithms can be used to approximate large numbers. Note that log b (a) + log b (c) = log b (ac), where a, b, and c are arbitrary constants. Suppose that one wants to approximate the 44th Mersenne prime, 2 32,582,657 −1. To get the base-10 logarithm, we would multiply 32,582,657 by log 10 (2), getting 9,808,357.09543 ...
The table shows what number the order of magnitude aim at for base 10 and for base 1 000 000. It can be seen that the order of magnitude is included in the number name in this example, because bi- means 2, tri- means 3, etc. (these make sense in the long scale only), and the suffix -illion tells that the base is 1 000 000 .
Four powers of 10 spanning a range of three decades: 1, 10, 100, 1000 (10 0, 10 1, 10 2, 10 3) Four grids spanning three decades of resolution: One thousand 0.001s, one-hundred 0.01s, ten 0.1s, one 1. One decade (symbol dec [1]) is a unit for measuring ratios on a logarithmic scale, with one decade corresponding to a ratio of 10 between two ...
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The base of the logarithm function used is of little importance in the present article, as long as it is greater than 1, but the natural logarithm with base e is the one most often used. The choice of base corresponds to the choice of logarithmic unit for the value: base 2 corresponds to a shannon , base e to a nat , and base 10 to a hartley ...