2. The rat, the pallet and the logs

The rat: The recent cold snap has encouraged Sheila and myself to be more enthusiastic about putting seeds and nuts on the bird table. But in recent weeks, an uninvited guest has joined the party. Yes, Mr. Rat has been busy helping himself as well. Last week, I had my camera at the ready and here’s the moment when he realised he was rumbled. 

Rumbled

In a flash he was off, making a rapid leap for freedom, disappearing around the side of the house.

The leap for freedom

‘I bet your life he’s living under that tarpaulin where we store the logs,’ Sheila said straightaway and I rather felt that she was right. We removed the tarpaulin and carefully started reorganising the logs. But all we uncovered was a very sleepy, plump frog. 

We could see that the logs at the bottom of the pile had started to rot and gather moss. What we needed was a large pallet to go underneath, but where would we get one of those?

The pallet: Two days later, I was driving into town to pick Sheila up from a little light shopping. The footpaths were jammed with pedestrians and the roads were busy with commercial vehicles trying to unload goods. As I approached our usual pick-up point, I could see that there was a bit of a commotion. It seemed that the footpath was blocked – mothers with prams and pushchairs were having to step into the road to get past. It was then that I spotted the source of the blockage, waving at me frantically. There she was, making her way slowly along, staggering under the weight of the largest pallet I have ever seen – it looked like it weighed a ton. It turned out that she had found it at the back of a local TV store (what was she doing there?).

With difficulty we managed to get it into the car and home. It now forms the base of our new log store. So I just need to send Sheila out to liberate a few more pallets of a similar size and shape and our log store will be complete.

Logs: While we were working on the wood pile, I asked Sheila what she remembered of logarithms at school.  She laughed. “I remember a book with big numbers in. I don’t know what we did with them though.”

The book of mystery from schooldays

So, what does the average person understand by the word logarithm – a term I’ve worked with all my life? I emailed a few of my friends and they all graced me with interesting and entertaining responses, from which here's a selection.

* Umm, log tables, looking things up that didn't make sense, then I had an exotic looking calculator and I still have no idea. (age 44)

* I know that a logarithm is something to do with sums, and that there are log tables, but I can’t help you any further. I have to say that I would have expected you to know what a logarithm is without having to ask. (age 65)

* Absolutely no idea whatsoever. (age 42)

* Something from school days -– slim book with columns of very long numbers in. Some kind of crazy multiplication? (age 67)

* I cannot think of any other bit of schooling where the books on the memory shelves have snapped so firmly shut. (age 62)

* Without looking it up I wouldn’t know the word logarithm, other than thinking it is a mathematical equation of some sort. (age 31)

One reply was a perfect textbook definition and it came from my neighbour Andy: 

* It's the power to which the base number is raised to get the number in question.

Have a gold star Andy and go to the top of the class! 

So, overall, the little book and its columns of numbers was well remembered by most of the over sixties age group, but very little else of any substance!

What IS a logarithm?: Although Andy's definition is correct, it may be too dense for most people to grasp at a single reading. Learning about logarithms needs a little patience. If you're interested in knowing what a logarithm is, I've made a short YouTube video which you can view here.

But a trickier question is, what’s the point of logarithms and why do we need them. Relax – I won’t explain that now but I hope to return to it in a future post. Instead, here's another 'lightbulb' joke.

Postscript

If you are interested in finding out more about logarithms and their properties, have a look here in my website, MathinPictures.co.uk.