what exactly *is* a logarithm and what does it do?

Question

I mean, I’ve used them in algebra many times but I never really understood what it does. Kinda like in biostatistics how I could do the math, but how it worked was beyond me entirely.

So yeah: like what’s this sorcery and what does it do/why do we use it?

In: Mathematics

Answer 1

A log asks how many times you need to multiply 1 number to get to another number.

For example, log2(8)=3 because you need three 2s (2×2×2) to get 8.