Could someone explain Logarithm to a dummy who has never had Algebra?

if you've never had algebra, why do you want to know about logarithms?

if you can't understand the wikipedia article, i don't think anyone will be able to help you.

>>41633
my IT class has Logarithm, although algebra wasnt a requirement to begin there

>>41678
The inverse of exponentials. 2^3 is 8 and log base 2 of 8 is 3.

>>41678
Okay, a logarithm is just the inverse of a power.

Logarithms are in different bases; that's the number it's an inverse-power of.

The base comes after the word log; it's written below the line, like in "H2O", if you can. It's pronounced "log <number>", so log2 is pronounced "log two".

If n=log2 x, then 2^n=x
If y=10^m, then m=log10 y
logx x = 1, because x^1 = x
log<anything> 1 = 0, because <anything>^0 = 1

log10 100 = 2, because 10^2 = 100

You can also write "log10" as just "log", though in CS, just "log" usually means "log2".

There's algebraic things you can do to manipulate logs and convert them into different bases, but you probably won't need to do that.

>>41678
>IT
>Logarithm
... don't you mean algorithms?

>>41732
Nap.

They're used in computational complexity.

You need to know that Onlogn is less than On^2, and that a binary tree is log2(leaves) deep, but that's about all you need to know about them.