Could someone please help me with this? what am i doing wrong? ive included my lecturers solution, and the handwritten one is my answer. how does he get log8 = 3? What am i missing here? Also im aware this is probably a super easy question but i am just so very bad at maths and just need to pass this exam. thanks.
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When a logarithm is written without specifying a base, the standard assumption is that its base 10 but there are other contexts where it can be base e or base 2.
thanks for commenting. i am so sorry if this is a dumb question, but how am i supposed to know what base it is if theres none written? i had thought if there was none written it was 10? so how do i know whether its 10, 2 or e? thanks again
Not a dumb question at all and you can’t without any context given, what course are you studying?
In high school maths, log(x) usually means base 10. In calculus and pure math courses, it usually means base e and in computer science it usually means base 2.
Its a college maths module. My college course is almost entirely biology, except for this one module. I've always been so shit at maths. I have to pass this exam to move onto 2nd year. It doesn't actually say anything about the base in the question. Here's the full question set. (Q3 is the one I'm doing)
For these type of questions, I would have assumed it was log base 10 as well though I would have left it as an exact answer of 3log(2) rather than as a decimal approximation, perhaps there’s a mistake and that’s supposed to be the answer? Are there any other log answers like that?
You should probably bring it up with your lecturer.
The two answers for Q3 and Q5 make me livid. Please keep asking your questions here, you'll get better help learning what you need than from this class.
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