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![[parent]](http://images.planetmath.org:8080/images/uparrow.png) Viewing Message
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| ``Re: Logarithms: Something more is needed''
by Algeboy on 2008-06-13 11:38:28 |
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Is your question "why aren't their exponential tables?" That is, if you wanted to go back and that required that you find 10^1.23, how would that be done before computers?
Well, log tables also are exponential tables because logs are bijections. You just read the table differently. To find 10^1.23 you in a log table means that you look in a log base 10 table and find the box which has 1.23 (or the closest to that). Then you pullback to find the number which represents 10^1.23.
This same sort of thing happens with many data tables, such as tables of P-values in statistics. You don't bother writting two tables with the same data but just assume that the reader understand the meaning of the data well enough to use it forward and backward.
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