Wednesday, March 09, 2022

Ruminating on the log scale

Today, I was trying to explain my colleague on the usecases where a log scale could be more useful than a linear scale and I found this wonderful video that explains this concept like a boss! - https://youtu.be/eJF9hiv3c-A

One of the fundamental advantages of using the log scale is that you can illustrate both small and large values on the same graph. Log scales are also consistent because each unit increase signifies the same multiplier effect - e.g. Log10 has 10* multiplier. 

I also never knew the following scales used popularly are actually log scales:

  • Audio volume (decibel) - 10x increase from 50 decibel to 60 decibel
  • Acidity (ph scale)
  • Richter scale (earthquakes)
  • Radioactivity (measure of radiation)

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