Abstract
This chapter discusses the new type of function, the exponential function, and its inverse, the logarithmic function. Exponential functions occur in a wide variety of applied problems. The chapter presents problems dealing with population growth, such as predicting the growth of bacteria in a culture medium; radioactive decay, such as determining the half-life of strontium 90; and the interest earned when an interest rate is compounded. The chapter discusses the three fundamental properties of logarithms that has made them a powerful computational aid. In solving logarithms, the more complex operations of multiplication and division are converted to addition and subtraction and exponentiation is converted to multiplication. To solve an exponential equation, one takes logarithms of both sides of the equation; to solve a logarithmic equation, one forms a single logarithm on one side of the equation and then convert the equation to the equivalent exponential form.
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