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In mathematics, the logarithm to base b is the inverse function of exponentiation with base b. That means that the logarithm of a number x to the base b is the exponent to which b must be raised to produce x. For example, since 1000 = 10 3, the logarithm base of 1000 is 3, or log 10 (1000) = 3.
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.
ln (r) is the standard natural logarithm of the real number r. Arg (z) is the principal value of the arg function; its value is restricted to (−π, π]. It can be computed using Arg (x + iy) = atan2 (y, x). Log (z) is the principal value of the complex logarithm function and has imaginary part in the range (−π, π].
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] The natural logarithm of x is generally written as ln x, log e x, or sometimes, if the base e is implicit, simply log x.
In mathematics, a complex logarithm is a generalization of the natural logarithm to nonzero complex numbers. The term refers to one of the following, which are strongly related: A complex logarithm of a nonzero complex number z , defined to be any complex number w for which e z . [ 1 ][ 2 ] Such a number w is denoted by log z . [ 1 ]
An important property of base-10 logarithms, which makes them so useful in calculations, is that the logarithm of numbers greater than 1 that differ by a factor of a power of 10 all have the same fractional part. The fractional part is known as the mantissa. [note 2] Thus, log tables need only show the fractional part. Tables of common ...
If exponentiation is indicated by stacked symbols using superscript notation, the usual rule is to work from the top down: [2] [7] a b c = a (b c) which typically is not equal to (a b) c. This convention is useful because there is a property of exponentiation that (a b) c = a bc, so it's unnecessary to use serial exponentiation for this.
Calculus. In mathematics, specifically in calculus and complex analysis, the logarithmic derivative of a function f is defined by the formula where is the derivative of f. [1] Intuitively, this is the infinitesimal relative change in f; that is, the infinitesimal absolute change in f, namely scaled by the current value of f.