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Common Logarithm

Min

Max

10

The common logarithm is the logarithm to base 10. The notation

is used by physicists, engineers, and calculator keypads to denote the . Worse still, in Russian literature

common logarithm. However, mathematicians generally use the same symbol to mean the natural logarithm ln, the notation

is used to denote a base-10 logarithm, which conflicts with the use of the symbol lg to indicate the logarithm to base 2. To avoid all when the logarithm to base 10 is intended. In this work, is used for the logarithm to the base 2. , is

ambiguity, it is best to explicitly specify used for thenatural logarithm, and

The situation is complicated even more by the fact that number theorists (e.g., Ivi 2003) commonly use the notation natural logarithm .

to denote the nested

The common logarithm is implemented in Mathematica as Log[10, x] and Log10[x]. Hardy and Wright (1979, p. 8) assert that the common logarithm has "no mathematical interest." Common and natural logarithms can be expressed in terms of each other as

and

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The common logarithm extended into the complex plane is illustrated above.

Cologarithm

The logarithm of the reciprocal of a number, equal to the negative of the logarithm of the number itself,

Exponential Function

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The exponential function is the entire function defined by

(1)
where e is the solution of the equation equation with . so that . is also the unique solution of the

The exponential function is implemented in Mathematica as Exp[z]. It satisfies the identity

(2)
If ,

(3)
The exponential function satisfies the identities (4)

(5) (6) (7)

where

is the Gudermannian (Beyer 1987, p. 164; Zwillinger 1995, p. 485).

The exponential function has Maclaurin series

(8)

and satisfies the limit

(9)
If

(10)
then (11)

(12)

(13)

The exponential function has continued fraction

(14)

(Wall 1948, p. 348).

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The above plot shows the function

(Trott 2004, pp. 165-166).

Integrals involving the exponential function include (15)

(16)

Harmonic Logarithm
For all integers satisfying and nonnegative integers , the harmonic logarithms of order and degree are defined as the unique functions

1.

2.

has no constant term except

3.

where the "Roman symbol"

is defined by

(1)

(Roman 1992). This gives the special cases (2)

(3)

where

is a harmonic number. The harmonic logarithm has the integral

(4)
The harmonic logarithm can be written

(5)
where is the differential operator, (so is the th integral). Rearranging gives

(6)
This formulation gives an analog of the binomial theorem called the logarithmic binomial theorem. Another expression for the harmonic logarithm is

(7)

where

is a Pochhammer symbol and

is a two-index harmonic number (Roman 1992).

Lg
There are several conflicting meanings associated with the notation thecommon logarithm . In German and Russian literature, the notation is used to mean . This is also the usage recommended by the United States Department of Commerce (Taylor 1995, p. 33).

However,

is sometimes identified with the binary logarithm

in some number theoretic literature (and here, as defined by Ivi 2003).

mean the

base-2 logarithm, not the nested natural logarithm

Ln

is the notation used in physics and engineering to denote the logarithm to base e, also called the natural logarithm, i.e.,

The United States Department of Commerce recommends that the notation p. 33).

be used in this way to refer to the natural logarithm (Taylor 1995,

Unfortunately, mathematicians in the United States commonly use the symbol

to refer to the natural logarithm, as

Logarithmic Series

Infinite series of various simple functions of the logarithm include (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

where is the Euler-Mascheroni constant and is the Riemann zeta function. Note that the first two of these are divergent in the classical sense, but converge when interpreted as zeta-regularized sums. does TraditionalFormtypesetting in Mathematica. The use of considerable confusion, so extreme care is needed in determining if the symbol

for different purposes by different mathematical communities causes found in the wild refers to or .

The natural logarithm is implemented in Mathematica as Log[x], which is equivalent to Log[E, x].

Logarithmic

NumberNapierian Logarithm

The first definition of the logarithm was constructed by Napier and popularized through his posthumous pamphlet (Napier 1619). It this pamphlet, Napier sought to reduce the operations of multiplication, division, and root extraction to addition and subtraction. To this end, he defined the "logarithm" of a number by

(1)
written .

This definition leads to the remarkable relations (2) (3) (4)

which give the identities (5) (6)

(7)

(Havil 2003, pp. 8-9). While Napier's definition is different from the modern one (in particular, it decreases with increasing number of properties of the modern logarithm), it provides the desired property of transforming multiplication into addition.

, but also fails to satisfy a

Natural Logarithm

The natural logarithm

is the logarithm having base e, where (1)

This function can be defined (2)

for

This definition means that e is the unique number with the property that the area of the region bounded by the hyperbola , the x-axis, and the vertical lines and is 1. In other words, (3)

The notation is used in physics and engineering to denote the natural logarithm, while mathematicians commonly use the notation . In this work, denotes a natural logarithm, whereas denotes the common logarithm. There are a number of notational conventions in common use for indication of a power of a natural logarithm. While some authors use (i.e., using a trigonometric function-like convention), it is also common to write . Common and natural logarithms can be expressed in terms of each other as (4) (5) The natural logarithm is especially useful in calculus because its derivative is given by the simple equation (6) whereas logarithms in other bases have the more complicated derivative (7)

The natural logarithm can be analytically continued to complex numbers as (8) where is the complex modulus and is the complex argument. The natural logarithm is a multivalued function and hence requires a branch cut in the complex plane, which Mathematica's convention places at .

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The principal value of the natural logarithm is implemented in Mathematica as Log[x], which is equivalent to Log[E, x]. This function is illustrated above in the complex plane. Note that the inverse trigonometric and inverse hyperbolic functions can be expressed (and, in fact, are commonly defined) in terms of the natural logarithm, as summarized in the table below. Therefore, once these definition are agreed upon, the branch cut structure adopted for the natural logarithm fixes the branch cuts of these functions. function inverse cosecant inverse cosine inverse cotangent inverse hyperbolic cosecant inverse hyperbolic cosine inverse hyperbolic cotangent inverse hyperbolic secant inverse hyperbolic sine inverse hyperbolic tangent inverse secant inverse sine inverse tangent The Mercator series (9) gives a Taylor series for the natural logarithm. Continued fraction representations of logarithmic functions include symbol definition

(10)

(Lambert 1770; Lagrange 1776; Olds 1963, p. 138; Wall 1948, p. 342) and (11)

(Euler 1813-1814; Wall 1948, p. 343; Olds 1963, p. 139). For a complex number , the natural logarithm satisfies (12) (13) and (14) where is the principal value.

Some special values of the natural logarithm include (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) Natural logarithms can sometimes be written as a sum or difference of "simpler" logarithms, for example (20) which follows immediately from the identity (21)

Plouffe (2006) found the following beautiful identities: (2 2)

Nested Logarithm

(2 3)

In number theory (e.g., Ivi 2003), the symbol mean , where

is commonly used to

is the natural logarithm. Care must therefore be as the logarithm to base or the -

taken when interpreting nested natural logarithm.

The plots above show

, and

in the complex plane.

The penchant for formulas and bounds containing a profusion of nested logarithms has led to the following joke. What sound does a drowning analytic number theorist make? A: log log log log... (Havil 2003, p. 115).
SEE ALSO:Binary Logarithm, Common Logarithm, Logarithm, Natural Logarithm

(2 4)

A power is an exponent to which a given quantity is raised. The expression therefore known as " to the th power." A number of powers of above (cf. Derbyshire 2004, pp. 68 and 73). are plotted

is

The power may be an integer, real number, or complex number. However, the power of a real number to a non-integer power is not necessarily itself a real number. For example, is real only for .

A number other than 0 taken to the power 0 is defined to be 1, which follows from the limit

(1)
This fact is illustrated by the convergence of curves at which shows for in the plot above,

, 0.4, ..., 2.0. It can also be seen more intuitively by

noting that repeatedly taking the square root of a number gives smaller and smaller numbers that approach one from above, while doing the same with a number between 0 and 1 gives larger and larger numbers that approach one from below. For giving square roots, the total power taken is in the limit that is large. , which approaches 0 as is large,

(zero to the zeroth power) itself is undefined. The lack of a well-defined meaning for this quantity follows from the mutually contradictory facts that so should equal 1, but is always 0 (for ), so is always 1,

should equal 0. The

choice of definition for defining 1997, p. 57).

is usually defined to beindeterminate, although

allows some formulas to be expressed simply (Knuth 1992; Knuth

A number to the first power is, by definition, equal to itself, i.e.,

(2)
Similarly,

(3)
for any complex number . It is therefore impressive that Captain Kirk (William Shatner) is able to detect one more heartbeat aboard the starshipEnterprise than can be accounted for by amplifying an auditory sensor intensified by a factor of "1 to the fourth power" in the Season 1 Star Trekepisode "Court Martial" (1967). The rules for combining quantities containing powers are called the exponent laws, and the process of raising a base to a given power is known asexponentiation.

The derivative of

is given by

(4)
and the indefinite integral by

(5)

The definite integral for given by

real is known as Cavalieri's quadrature formula and is

(6)

While the simple equation

(7)
cannot be solved for using traditional elementary functions, the solution can be given in terms of the Lambert W-function as

(8)

where

is the natural logarithm of

Similarly, the solution to

(9)

can be solved for case

in terms of

using the Lambert W-function. In the special and , a third solution is (10)

, in addition to the solutions

(11)

(Sloane's A073084). Special names given to various powers are listed in the following table.

power name reciprocal square root cube root 1 2 3 identity function squared cubed

Expressions of the form

are known as power towers.

The largest powers form

which numbers

, 2, 3, ... can be represented in the

are 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 3, 2, 1, ... (Sloane's A052409), with given by 1, 2, 3, 2, 5, 6, 7, 2, 3, 10, ...

corresponding values of (Sloane's A052410).

A double binomial sum gives the power function as follows,

(12)

(K. MacMillan, pers. comm., Nov. 14, 2007).

The power sum of the first

positive integers is given by Faulhaber's formula,

(13)

where is the Kronecker delta, a Bernoulli number.

is a binomial coefficient, and

is

Let

be the largest integer that is not the sum of distinct

th powers , 3, ... are 128,

of positive integers (Guy 1994). The first few values for 12758, 5134240, 67898771, ... (Sloane's A001661).

Catalan's conjecture (now a theorem) states that 8 and 9 ( and ) are the only consecutive powers (excluding 0 and 1), i.e., the only solution toCatalan's Diophantine problem. In addition, Hyyr and Makowski proved that there do not exist three consecutive powers (Ribenboim 1996).

Very few numbers of the form powers

are prime (where composite ). The and prime , correspond

need not be considered, since for

only prime numbers of the form to , equal for and prime and the Mersenne primes, i.e.,

, .... Other numbers of the form . The only prime numbers of the form correspond to with , 2, 4, 6, 10, 14, 16, 20,

24, 26, ... (Sloane's A005574). Other numbers of the form equal .

There are no nontrivial solutions to the equation

(14)
for
SEE ALSO: SEE ALSO:

(Guy 1994, p. 153).

The Napierian logarithm can be given in terms of the modern logarithm by solving equation (1) for

, giving

(8)

Because a ratio of logarithms appears in this expression, any logarithm base numerator and denominator.

can be used as long as the same value of

is used for both

A coefficient of the Maclaurin series of

Great care is therefore needed to determine the intended definition for

when it is encountered in the wild.