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In calculus, logarithmic differentiation or differentiation by taking logarithms is a method used to differentiate functions by employing the logarithmic derivative of a function f, [1] () ′ = ′ ′ = () ′.
More generally, the logarithmic derivative of a quotient is the difference of the logarithmic derivatives of the dividend and the divisor: (/) ′ / = (′ ′) / / = ′ ′, just as the logarithm of a quotient is the difference of the logarithms of the dividend and the divisor.
The logarithmic derivative is another way of stating the rule for differentiating the logarithm of a function (using the chain rule): () ′ = ′, wherever is positive. Logarithmic differentiation is a technique which uses logarithms and its differentiation rules to simplify certain expressions before actually applying the derivative.
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. Derivations also use the log definitions x = b log b (x ...
The graph of the logarithm base 2 crosses the x-axis at x = 1 and passes through the points (2, 1), (4, 2), and (8, 3), depicting, e.g., log 2 (8) = 3 and 2 3 = 8. The graph gets arbitrarily close to the y-axis, but does not meet it. Addition, multiplication, and exponentiation are three of the most fundamental arithmetic operations.
In mathematics, the derivative is a fundamental tool that quantifies the sensitivity to change of a function's output with respect to its input. The derivative of a function of a single variable at a chosen input value, when it exists, is the slope of the tangent line to the graph of the function at that point.
Using that the logarithm of a product is the sum of the logarithms of the factors, the sum rule for derivatives gives immediately = = (). The last above expression of the derivative of a product is obtained by multiplying both members of this equation by the product of the f i . {\displaystyle f_{i}.}
In calculus, the differential represents the principal part of the change in a function = with respect to changes in the independent variable. The differential is defined by = ′ (), where ′ is the derivative of f with respect to , and is an additional real variable (so that is a function of and ).