Are Logarithims essential in accounting and finance?

Question

Hey I'm a business major who will be pursuing one of the two mentioned majors. I've always done fine in math and even got a B in calculus, but for whatever reason I have never been able to grasph logarithims, and natural logs. They always kill me and hurt my grades too.

How important are they within the accounting and finance majors, and the business world in general?

Answer 1

Not much. Logarithms were originally conceived and worked out to handle large numbers and radical numbers by monks.

Log to base e will be of some use in determining population gain and growth. Also in population decline. Also disposable income gain or decline with in target group. Can be used in marketing strategies.

As for log to base 10 that is mostly used in engineering, Psychics, and Higher Math.

Basically all a log is, is the base raised to some power.

Example Log [base 10] of 100 = 2 since 10^2 raised to the second power is 100

Another example is let's say 1.345 is the Log or some number. What that means is 10^1.345 power is going to equal the number.
So.
[******] indicates rounded off.
anti-log [base 10] 1.345 = 22.1309*********
the way you key that into your calculator if you have a TI is like this:
[ ] indicates keying in:
CLEAR: [2nd function] [10^x] [1.345] [enter] The first function key is (Log)
also
10^1.345 = 22.1309*********
The way you key that into your calculator if you have a TI is like this:

CLEAR: [10][^] [ ( ] [1.345] [ ) ] [enter]
It took Monks back in the middle ages years and years to figure all that out. So don't drive yourself nuts trying to figure out how they did it. That is where a lot of students make their mistakes with Logs. They get so engrossed trying to figure out how the Monks derived Logs they end up confusing themselves and doing poorly in Logs.
Just use them as needed. Unless you are majoring in Mathematics and are doing a Thesis on the history of Mathematics and Logs you really don't need to know.