What is a logarithm and why was it invented?
The Step Counter
What is a logarithm and why was it invented?
Imagine you're a sailor in the year 1600, and you need to multiply two enormous numbers — say, 487,213 times 9,056,400. By hand. Tonight. With a candle that's burning low. You sigh. Your hand cramps just thinking about it. There has to be a better way... and one quiet Scotsman is about to find it.
Here's the trick the world was missing. Adding is easy. Multiplying is hard. So what if you could turn every hard multiplication problem into an easy addition problem? That sounds like magic. It's actually a logarithm — and it begins with a pattern hiding inside the numbers.
