Factsheet: Laws of logarithms

Author

Millie Pike

Summary
A list of laws of logarithms.

The associated study guide for this factsheet is Guide: Introduction to logarithms. If you would like to know more about logarithms, please read the guide.

Throughout this factsheet, \(a,k, x,\) and \(y\) are positive real numbers, and \(n\) is a real number, with \(a, k \neq 1\).

Laws of logarithms

Law 1 - Product Rule: \[\log_a(x) + \log_a(y) = \log_a(xy)\]

Law 2 - Quotient Rule: \[\log_a(x) - \log_a(y) = \log_a(\frac{x}{y})\]

Law 3 - Power Rule: \[\log_a(x^n) = n\log_a(x)\]

Law 4 - Zero Rule: \[\log_a(1) = 0\]

Law 5 - Identity Rule: \[\log_a(a) = 1\]

Law 6 - Change of Base Rule: \[\log_a(x) = \frac{\log_k(x)}{\log_k(a)}\]

For more on the subject, please go to Guide: Introduction to logarithms



Version history

v1.0: created in 02/25 by Millie Pike as part of a University of St Andrews VIP project.

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

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