Uses of Logarithms

Logarithms are mostly used in calculus and physics.

In organic chemistry, in twelfth grade, you will use logarithms to find pH. In physics, noise, earthquakes, star brightness, sensation, etc, are measured using logarithmic scales. Computers also use logarithms.

All of the scales mentioned above, however, use base-10 logarithms. The most common logarithm you will come across that is not base-10 is the natural log or ln, which is base-e. Ln will be used a lot when integrating, but you don’t have to worry about that until your second semester senior year.

The only time I’ve used logarithms based some other number different than 10 or e, was when looking for the inverse of functions. For instance, the inverse of 3^x is log base-3.

Still, there are different types of logarithms used in science and engineering. There even are imaginary-based logarithms, but I doubt any of us will encounter those in the years to come.