Mathematics

Logarithms are widely used in computer science (e.g. for algorithm analyses, floating point number limitations, scaling data, feature transformations). Not coming from a mathematics background (I don’t!) logarithms can seem confusing at first. Let’s look at the very basics of logarithms to get an understanding of how they can be broken apart, some of the properties that can be utilized, and why they work. What is a Logarithm? $$\log_{b}(x)$$The logarithm is defined as the inverse operation to exponentiation. To get the logarithm of a number, we need to find out, to what exponent another number, called the base, needs to be raised to produce that first number. ...

LaTeX is the de facto standard typesetting system for scientific writing. A lot of the nice looking equations you see in books and all around the web are written using LaTeX commands. Knowing a few of the mathematics commands is not only helpful if you want to write a book or an article (or do some extreme stuff), but can come in handy in a lot of places, as many systems support LaTeX. You can use LaTeX in MathJax to display expressions on the web (like here), you can make yourself good looking mathematics flashcards in Anki, you can even nerd out and send formulas built with LaTeX commands to your friends via an iMessage app. Also, Apple’s latest Pages release now supports LaTeX equations. ...