Testwiki:Reference desk/Archives/Mathematics/2011 November 9

{| width = "100%"

|- ! colspan="3" align="center" | Mathematics desk |- ! width="20%" align="left" | < November 8 ! width="25%" align="center"|<< Oct | November | Dec >> ! width="20%" align="right" |Current desk > |}

Welcome to the Wikipedia Mathematics Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 9

Laws of Logs

What happens if a logarithm has a coefficient. What effect does this have on logarithms?

For example, how could log(a)-nlog(b) be written as a single logarithm?

Would n have to be written as a power of b?

--T.M.M. Dowd (talk) 19:52, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes. $n\log (b)=\log (b^n)$, so $\log (a)-n\log (b)=\log \left(\frac{a}{b^n}\right)$. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:11, 9 November 2011 (UTC)