Logarithms: Mobile Phones, Modelling & Statistics?

Gresham College Lectures

Logarithms were perhaps once thought of as just an old-fashioned way to do sums on slide rules. But they underpin much of modern life, from modelling the COVID pandemic to Claude Shannon’s mathematical theory of information (which makes mobile phones a reality) and making sense of Cristiano Ronaldo’s crazy Instagram follower numbers.

This lecture will explore the basics and history of logarithms, and then show how they are a natural way to represent many models and datasets.

This lecture was recorded by Oliver Johnson on 22nd May 2024 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London
The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/logarithms
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