Logarithms are a common idea today, even though we don’t use them as often as we used to. After all, one of the major uses of logarithms is to simplify computations, and computers do that just fine ...

What they are: A logarithm is the exponent you raise a base to in order to get a number, acting as the inverse of exponentiation. Why they matter: They simplify multiplication, division, and roots ...

I'd never have guessed, in the days when I used to paw through my grubby book of logarithms in maths classes, that I'd come to look back with fondness on these tables of cryptic decimals. In those ...

Mark Arnold is currently at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) on leave of absence from the University of Wyoming. He is the author or co-author of more than a ...

You may find this hard to believe, but there are people still alive today who once did their mathematical calculations by sliding sticks back and forth. No keypads, no batteries, no LEDs. Just sticks.