Logging the World - Oliver Johnson

During the pandemic, you may have seen graphs of data plotted on strange-looking (logarithmic) scales. Oliver will explain some of the basics and history of logarithms, and show why they are a natural tool to represent numbers ranging from COVID data to Instagram followers. In fact, we’ll see how logarithms can even help us understand information itself in a mathematical way.

The solution to the two maths questions puzzle occurs from 9.20 onwards, though the fuller explanation starts from the beginning of the lecture.

Oliver Johnson is Professor of Information Theory in the School of Mathematics at the University of Bristol. He has regularly appeared on radio and is the author of the book Numbercrunch (2023), which is designed to help a general audience understand the value of maths as a toolkit for making sense of the world.

[jacobgeorge]

Here after getting edged by that ig reel

[Magius]

Lmao, how did some random short get me watching a full maths lecture

[brattwurst]

bro that "you've come to a maths talk on valentine's so im hoping you've heard the word exponential before" 🤣🤣🤣

[ankushds]

I can't believe I'm excited to watch a math lecture -- and adding it to my calender being a biology person. I'm a nerd

[hestu]

1:18 is where it continues from the YouTube short

[luisricardolopezvillafan]

A nice example of salesmanship for a math lecture

[maxpetrov]

You've come to a math lecture on valentines Day – oh, that is sooo me

[Player-stnu]

For people here from the YouTube short : the explanation is about how you can use logarithms to shortcut difficult multiplication.

Without taking calculus this will be hard to understand but basically it’s just finding similarities or common pairs of/in numbers, then solving. 9:10 he talking about the simple 2 to the 2 x 2 to the 3 = 2^5. Numbers multiply but logs add, and addition is usually easier than multiplication.

Simple enough. The short was misleading tho lmao

[marcelma]

I am again and again amazed, how people uncritically apply a lot of brain power to doubtful data. In any case we do not learn much about reality by such an approach. It reminds me of the scholastic discussions about how many angles fit on the top of a needle.

[smurphete]

9:23 He explains why they're the same complexity...they're not.

[GabrielMcNeill]

It was actually John Tukey (also at Bell Labs) who invented the word "bit, " but Shannon used the word in a 1948 paper.

[martinsanchez-hwfi]

What does the rank mean in 44:00? Shouldn't the probability be a logarithm of some proportion of the twitter accounts and the x axis the logarithm of the number of followers?

[jimjenke]

Thank you for unveiling the COVID-19 inaccuracies-there are many

[manicminer]

Logs are much more useful for doing division than multiplication. Division is much more computationally expensive than multiplication.

[zaimarif]

started with an ig reels and now I'm stuck for 48 minutes on math lecture...

[nayrikamasjedi]

Yes I want to know how to beat look at the problem to solve it more efficiently.

[DxGamer]

Here after getting edged to failure by Tiktok. Not complaining, absolutely love maths

[TPhillips-wjiq]

what does he use to make slides? does anyone know?

[theark]

Pam Beesly brought me here but Oliver Johnson kept me ❤

[aleyziondder]

Now I really believe I have trauma for math. They are always lying math is easy you say? Or is it that this people only capable of speaking in numbers not words. They just shifted from using proper words to struggling to explain real quick cause they are not focusing on the delivery (easy to get the message out) instead they hop from point A to C. I can't see the relation just click bait.