What is a Logarithm?
The answer is so straight forward that it may surprise you.
How many times do we need to multiply this number by itself to get the desired answer?
A logarithm is a special type of math related to exponents. We don’t always know what the exponent will be and often want to find out. Logarithms, otherwise just known as “log,” simply states how many times we need to multiply a number by itself to get another number.
A log has a base, an exponent and an argument.
We often use log with a base ten because it helps us quickly understand very large numbers.
When we use logarithm base 10, we’re asking the question “how many times (the exponent) do I need to multiply 10 by itself to get a certain number (the argument)?”
For example, let’s say we want to find the logarithm base 10 of 100. We’re asking, “how many times do I need to multiply 10 by itself to get 100?”
We know that 10 x 10 = 100, so we only need to multiply 10 by itself 2 times to get 100. So the logarithm base 10 of 100 is 2, written as:
log base 10 of 100 = 2
Similarly, if we want to find the logarithm base 10 of 1000, we’re asking “how many times do I need…
