Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 122 views

    The Logarithmic Function

    Uploaded by

    Charalampidis Dimitris
    In this PDF we are exploring the key characteristics of a logarithmic function's graph. Domain, Range, x-intercept, y-intercept, monotonicity, sign, end behavior.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved

    The Logarithmic Function

    Uploaded by

    Charalampidis Dimitris
    122 views3 pages
    In this PDF we are exploring the key characteristics of a logarithmic function's graph. Domain, Range, x-intercept, y-intercept, monotonicity, sign, end behavior.

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    In this PDF we are exploring the key characteristics of a logarithmic function's graph. Domain, Range, x-intercept, y-intercept, monotonicity, sign, end behavior.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    122 views3 pages

    The Logarithmic Function

    Uploaded by

    Charalampidis Dimitris
    In this PDF we are exploring the key characteristics of a logarithmic function's graph. Domain, Range, x-intercept, y-intercept, monotonicity, sign, end behavior.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    You are on page 1of 3

    Logarithmic function

    Definition: By Logarithmic function, we mean a function in the form f ( x) = log a x .

    Restrictions

    Regarding the base a of the logarithm we want it to be a number bigger than 0 and different
    than 1.

    Regarding the argument x of the logarithm, we want it to be strictly bigger than 0.

    Therefore, given the function f ( x) = log a x , we need a  0, a  1, x  0 .

    Considering the restrictions set for the function’s base we can see that two new cases can be
    created:

    Case 1: 0  a  1

    Case 2: a  1

    We will now study each of these cases separately and see their corresponding graphs.

    Case 1 (Base of the logarithm is between 0 and 1)

    The graph of a function f ( x) = log a x , 0  a  1 , will look like the one that follows:

    Domain: We already stated that this function is defined


    only for values of x for which the argument (in
    our case x) is strictly bigger than 0.

    Therefore D f = ( 0, + )

    Range: As we can see from the graph itself, there are


    not any restrictions considering the y–values.

    Therefore R f = ( −, + ) = R
    YouTube: haraldim1

    X-intercept: The graph cuts the x-axis at the point


    (1,0). Of course this could have been
    easily found by inserting 0 in place of y
    and solving for x.
    Y-intercept: Due to the restriction regarding the x-values,
    we cannot plug in 0 in place of x and
    therefore we would not be able to find a
    y-intercept for the graph. As long as the
    function is like this and we do not have any
    horizontal translations, the graph will not have
    any y-intercept.

    Vertical asymptote: Considering what we mentioned earlier and from the way the graph looks,
    we can notice that the graph has a vertical asymptote which in this case is
    the y-axis itself.
    In fact to find the vertical asymptote of a logarithmic function, all we need
    is, to take the logarithm’s argument, make it equal to 0 and solve for x.

    Monotonicity: The graph is decreasing. This also implies that the graph cannot have a minimum
    or maximum point

    Sign of the function: The function takes positive values for x-values smaller than the graph’s x-
    intercept and from that point starts taking negative values respectively.

    End behavior: As x-values tend to 0 the y-values tend to become infinitely big, while as x-values
    tend to become infinitely large, the corresponding y-values tend to become

    infinitely negative ones. x → 0+  y → + and x → +  y → − .

    2
    YouTube: haraldim1

    Case 2 (Base of the logarithm is bigger than 1)

    The graph of a function f ( x) = log a x , a  1 , will look like the one that follows:

    Following the same reasoning as in case 1 we would have:

    Domain: D f = ( 0, + )

    Range: R f = ( −, + ) = R

    X-intercept: (1,0)

    Y-intercept: Not any

    Vertical asymptote: y-axis

    Horizontal asymptote: Not any

    Monotonicity: increasing

    Sign: Negative up until x-intercept

    Positive from x-intercept

    End behavior: as x-values become infinitely large, the y-values tend to become infinitely large

    as well. As x-values tend close to 0, the corresponding y-values tend to become

    infinitely negative ones. x → 0+  y → − and x → +  y → +

    You might also like