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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.
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 graph of the logarithm to base 2 crosses the x axis (horizontal axis) at 1 and passes through the points with coordinates (2, 1), (4, 2), and (8, 3). For example, log 2 (8) = 3, because 2 3 = 8. The graph gets arbitrarily close to the y axis, but does not meet or intersect it.
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. [b] Thus, log tables need only show the fractional part. Tables of common logarithms ...
One part of this machine called an "endless spindle" allowed the mechanical expression of the relation = (+), [14] with the aim of extracting the logarithm of a sum as a sum of logarithms. A LNS has been used in the Gravity Pipe ( GRAPE-5 ) special-purpose supercomputer [ 15 ] that won the Gordon Bell Prize in 1999.
A single branch of the complex logarithm. The hue of the color is used to show the argument of the complex logarithm. The brightness of the color is used to show the modulus of the complex logarithm. The real part of log(z) is the natural logarithm of | z |. Its graph is thus obtained by rotating the graph of ln(x) around the z-axis.
De Moivre gave an approximate rational-number expression for the natural logarithm of the constant. Stirling's contribution consisted of showing that the constant is precisely 2 π {\displaystyle {\sqrt {2\pi }}} .
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.