Extension - Theory of Logarithms

Please make sure that you have worked through the section on conversion of ordinary numbers to standard form before reading this. 

We have said that a number in standard form has the form  

The number to which the 10 has to be raised in the examples we have looked at has always been a whole number, e.g. 10 or 10 . 

In logs, a logarithm to base 10 of any number is the power to which 10 has to be raised in order to equal that number. 

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