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December 4, 2015

Exploration of Logs
An introduction to Logarithms

By Xochi Perez
Your
daily quote on
logarithms
"Notice something
magical here: as the
numbers inside the
logarithms grew
multiplicatively,
increasing tenfold each
time from 100 to 1,000 to
10,000, their logarithms
grew additively,
increasing from 2 to 3 to
4. Our brains perform a
similar trick when we
listen to music. The
frequencies of the notes in
a scale do, re, mi, fa,
sol, la, ti, do sound to
use like theyre rising in
equal steps. But
objectively their
vibrational frequencies
are rising by equal
multiplies.We perceive
pitch logarithmically.
-The Joy of X, Steven

Strogatz

Introduction to Logarithms
If you're someone isn't familiar with graphing
calculators do you ever wonder what the acronyms on a
calculator are? Im sure you've seen the button log, but
had no idea what it is used for. That button log stands
for logarithm. Logarithms are a necessity in life and
serve as a shortcut to calculations. Logarithms and
exponents are the inverse operation of each other. In
other words we can use logarithms to find the exact
exponent of a value that equals a number. For example,
if we have an exponent problem of 6^3 = 6 * 6 * 6= 216.
Now lets pretend we don't
know the exponent, but
know the value we want to
get. Thatll make the
equation 6^x=216. Since we
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know three 6s equal 216, x=3. We just converted an

Fun Fact:
"Logarithm" is a word made
up by a Scottish
mathematician John Napier
(1550-1617), from the Greek
word logos meaning
"proportion, ratio or word"
and arithmos meaning
"number", ... which together
makes "rationumber" ! (mathisfun.com)

John Napier

exponential problem into a logarithm. If we were to put

in logarithm notation it would be log6^216=3. This is
pronounced log of 216 at base 6. In the end logarithms
answer one essential question, How many of one
number do we multiply to get another number?

The History of Logarithms

If someone in the 1500s and 1600s wanted to do
a quick multiplication or addition calculation, they
couldn't just pull out their smartphone like we can
today. This made life a little more dicult, especially
for scientists and mathematicians. Their time had been
spent mostly on simple calculations, rather than actual
experiments. They would endeavor this challenge until
1614, when Logarithms were invented. A Scottish
mathematician by the name of John Napier created a
table logarithmic numbers. His table was an ecient
and innovative way of
dividing and multiplying
large numbers. They
consisted of a ratio of two
distances in geometric
form. Soon after his
invention it became a part
of mathematics. His table
was in base of 10. This why
there is a number 10 above
the log button on a
calculator. His table was
still dicult to read for
some folks, but luckily in 1620 another mathematician
made a discovery within logarithms. Joost Burgi, a swiss
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mathematician took an algebraic approach to the

concept. Supposedly Joost invented logarithms way
before Napier, but never published his work. In 1620
his published his invention of antilogarithms and
further development into decimal fractions and
exponential notation.
There are two types of logarithms; common and
natural. Common logarithms use a base of ten and are
equivalent to a log with no base. For example, log10^2
and log 2 equal the same thing. The second type of
logarithm is called natural logarithm which has a base

Joost Burgi

of e and is the inverse of e^x and be defined as In. For

example if you want to graph the inverse function of
y=e^x, then it would be Y=In x.
The Rules of Logarithm
In Logarithms there are four properties of
logarithms; Product, Quotient, Power, and
Equality. The Product property can be used
when you want to add logarithms with the
same base together. For example, if we have
a problem that is log3(9*27) and want to use
the product property then we must rewrite
to log3(9*27)= log3*9+log3*27. Our first step
was to rewrite or logarithm problem as a
sum. Then, we simply the entire problem
and get log3^3^2+log3^3^3. We simplified by
seeing how many times the log could go into the
base and rewriting it as an exponent. Finally we
add the power of the base which is 2 and 3, so it
equals 5. We can assure our answer is correct by
seeing that 3^5 is 243, which is what 9*27 is.

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The Quotient property deals with division where

it finds that m and n is the dierence of the log of
m and the log of n. We can focus on the
exponents to find the answer the dierence, since
we know that we multiply exponents when we
want to find the product of two numbers with the
same base. So, that means we would divide two
numbers with the same base by subtracting the
exponents. If we have a logarithm of log2^(32/8)
then we would rewrite it to log2^(32/8)= log2^32log2^8. Now we have to solve each log separately
which is log2^5 and log2^3. If we re-input that into
the equation we get 5-3=2. So, log2(32/8)=2 and if
we divide the fraction alone we get 4, and
log2^4=2 which confirms our answer.
The Power Property allows us to
manipulate the equation that it is easier to solve.
If we has a problem that asks us to find the
log2^8^3, we could just find the what the exponent
of 6^3, but why do that if theres a simpler way?
We can rewrite the problem as 3log2^8. For a
second pretend that the 3 in the front is not there
and focus on log2^6. If we solve for log2^8 we get
3. Now we go back to the number we pretended
was invisible and multiply to our new answer,
which is 3*3=9. So, log2^8^3=9.
The last property of equality is the simplest
one yet where the one log equals another log. An
example problem of log8^(x-2)= log8^5. If we
rewrite this into equality property we get x-2-5. All
we have to do now is solve for x which is 7
because 7-2=5.

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CITATIONS:
1.) Logarithm. UXL Encyclopedia of Science.
2002. Encyclopedia.com. 6 Dec. 2015 <http://
www.encyclopedia.com>.
2.) www.mathisfun.com
3.) https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/
logarithms.html
4.) http://spmaddmaths.onlinetuition.com.my/
2013/05/logarithms.html
5.) http://www.sosmath.com/algebra/logs/log1/
log1.html\
6.) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/antilogarithm
7.) https://www.teachengineering.org/collection/
van_/lessons/van_bmd_less2/
log_properties_lesson2_fig2.jpg
8.) http://www.montereyinstitute.org/courses/
DevelopmentalMath/
COURSE_TEXT2_RESOURCE/
U18_L2_T2_text_final.html