A) History of Logarithms Logarithms were invented independently by John Napier, a Scotsman, and by Joost Burgi, a Swiss.

Napier's logarithms were published in 1614; Burgi's logarithms were published in 1620. The objective of both men was to simplify mathematical calculations. This approach originally arose out of a desire to simplify multiplication and division to the level of addition and subtraction. Of course, in this era of the cheap hand calculator, this is not necessary anymore but it still serves as a useful way to introduce logarithms. Napier's approach was algebraic and Burgi's approach was geometric. The invention of the common system of logarithms is due to the combined effort of Napier and Henry Biggs in 1624. Natural logarithms first arose as more or less accidental variations of Napier's original logarithms. Their real significance was not recognized until later. The earliest natural logarithms occur in 1618. It cant be said too often: a logarithm is nothing more than an exponent. The basic concept of logarithms can be expressed as a shortcut. Multiplication is a shortcut for Addition: 3 x 5 means 5 + 5 + 5 Exponents are a shortcut for Multiplication: 4^3 means 4 x 4 x 4 Logarithms are a shortcut for Exponents: 10^2 = 100. The present definition of the logarithm is the exponent or power to which a stated number, called the base, is raised to yield a specific number. The logarithm of 100 to the base 10 is 2. This is written: log10 (100) = 2. Before pocket calculators only three decades ago, but in student years thats the age of dinosaurs the answer was simple. You needed logs to compute most powers and roots with fair accuracy; even multiplying and dividing most numbers were easier with logs. Every decent algebra books had pages and pages of log tables at the back. The invention of logs in the early 1600s fueled the scientific revolution. Back then scientists, astronomers especially, used to spend huge amounts of time crunching numbers on paper. By cutting the time they spent doing arithmetic, logarithms effectively gave them a longer productive life. The slide rule, once almost a cartoon trademark of a scientist, was nothing more than a device built for doing various computations quickly, using logarithms.

B) 1-Seismologist, Earthquake Word Problems Example 1: Early in the century the earthquake in San Francisco registered 8.3 on the Richter scale. In the same year, another earthquake was recorded in South America that was four time stronger. What was the magnitude of the earthquake in South American? Solution: Convert the first sentence to an equivalent mathematical sentence or equation.

Convert the second sentence to an equivalent mathematical sentence or equation. Solve for MSA. The intensity of the earthquake in South America was 8.9 on the Richter scale.

Example 2: A recent earthquake in San Francisco measured 7.1 on the Richter scale. How many times more intense was the San Francisco earthquake described in Example 1? Solution: The intensity (I) of each earthquake was different. Let I1 represent the intensity the early earthquake and I2represent the latest earthquake.

What you are looking for is the ratio of the intensities: So our task is to isolate this ratio from the above given information using the rules of logarithms.

Convert the logarithmic equation to an exponential equation. The early earthquake was 16 times as intense as the later earthquake.

2) Biology, Radioactive Decay Example 1: If you start a biology experiment with 5,000,000 cells and 45% of the cells are dying every minute, how long will it take to have less than 1,000 cells? Solution: Let's start by calculation some points, graphing the points, and then determining what mathematical model best describes the points. The number of remaining cells at any time depends on the amount of time since the experiment began. All the points will have the form (time since experiment began, number of remaining cells). This sounds complicated, but it is not

For example, at the start of the experiment no time has passed and time=0. At the start of the experiment there are 5,000,000 cells. Therefore the first point is One minute after the experiment starts, 45% of the five million cells die leaving 55% X 5,000,000 = 2,750,000 cells. The corresponding point is Two minutes after the experiment starts, 45% of the 2,750,000 cells die leaving 55% X 2,750,000 = 1,512,500 cells. The corresponding point is Three minutes after the experiment starts, 45% of 1,512,500 cells die leaving 55% X 1,512,500 = 831,875 cells. The corresponding point is When you plot these points, you note that the curve looks exponential. Therefore, the mathematical model is probably exponential.

A mathematical model is nothing more than a fancy word for an equation. An exponential equation looks something like the following equation: where f(t) represents the number of cells remaining t minutes after the experiment started, a represents the number of cells at the start of the experiment ,t represents the numbers of minutes since the experiment began, and b represents the decay constant at time t based on a base of e. (Note that the decay constant changes when the base changes) We know that a=5,000,000 because we started with five million cells. You can verify this in the equation by letting t=0 in the equation.

The equation is now modified:

We know that there are

2,750,000 cells after 1 minute. Another way of saying this is that In the above equation, replace with 2,750,000 and replace t with 1.

Take the natural logarithm of both sides of the equation:

The decay factor is -0.597837 The equation describing the number of cells remaining after an experiment has begun is