section_path: Logarithm tables, slide rules, and historical applications
section_name: Logarithm tables, slide rules, and historical applications
paragraph_text: Logarithm tables, slide rules, and historical applications
  
  By simplifying difficult calculations before calculators and computers became available, logarithms contributed to the advance of science, especially astronomy. They were critical to advances in surveying, celestial navigation, and other domains. Pierre-Simon Laplace called logarithms
  
  As the function f (x) = b is the inverse function of log x, it has been called an antilogarithm. Nowadays, this function is more commonly called an exponential function.