The Exponent Question

You'll learnto read a logarithm as the question 'what exponent turns the base into the argument?'

Count the doublings that take 2 to 32 and you have already found a logarithm: it is just the exponent you counted. From there the ladder drops below 1, any one of the three numbers can be the blank, and the tempting rule for the log of a sum turns out never to have existed. Twelve short steps; press Next for each one.

12 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · A LOGARITHM IS AN EXPONENT · v3

count the doublings · that count is the logarithm

Before you start

What you're looking at

A ladder of doublings, with the exponent on the left rail and the value it reaches on the right.

The question

What exponent turns the base into the argument?

Step 1 / 12