What is so special about the natural logarithm? What is it good for?
What is so special about the natural logarithm? What is it good for?
I understand that log2 is useful for informatics, e.g. to determine how many bits I need to represent a given number. I understand that log10 is useful to determine the order of magnitude of numbers.
However, I'm having trouble understanding what makes ln interesting. It seems like it's used a lot, but to me it just looks like a logarithm with a very weird base. What are the uses for this logarithm?
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It's not a weird base, it's really the most natural base to choose, which is why it's called the natural logarithm. It doesn't particularly matter what base you choose, because you can always convert from one base to another, but often the natural logarithm is simpler to work with. For example, the derivative of ln(x) is just 1/x. The derivative of log10(x) is 1/(x*ln(10)).
This is because ln(x) is the inverse of e^x, which has the unique property that it is its own derivative.
The simple derivative really is nice, thanks for pointing this out!