  When I was in high school, I never did figure out what logarithms were all about. (I must have been sick that week!). But in my first year university math and physics courses, I discovered that I needed to know what they were, and how they worked. So I went off to the library, found an old high school math textbook, and taught myself all about them. I discovered that they weren't that strange at all! The word 'logarithm' looked intimidating, but in fact it was really just a new name for something I already knew all about! The word 'logarithm' just means 'exponent', or 'power'. Before looking at logarithms, you might want to review simple powers. It will be very important to have many of them memorized, as explained on those pages. Here's a logarithm:  How about if I asked you: 'What power of 2 is 8?' Hopefully, you'd immediately reply, '3'. Here's the logarithm that says this:  Here's another one: 'What power of 2 is 32?' The answer is of course '5'. Here's the logarithmic statement that says the same thing:  This time you try one. What does this mean?  |