A-level Physics (Advancing Physics)/Digital Storage/Logarithms

That formula involved logarithms. If ab = c, then: In other words, a logarithm is a way of asking the question, "a to the power of what is c?" a is known as the base of the logarithm. log a is shorthand for log10a, and can be calculated using the 'log' button on a scientific calculator. Just as with indices, there are some laws of logarithms. At present, we are only concerned with this one: If we apply this to the formula for calculating the number of possible values a pixel can take on (v = 2b), we can rearrange it to get a formula for b by taking the logarithm to the base 10 of both sides: We can then use a scientific calculator to calculate log 2, giving us the formula: