Another important class of functions besides
polynomials is exponential and
logarithmic functions. Exponential and logarithmic functions are
inverses of each other. An exponential
function is a function of the form f (x) = ax, where a > 0, a≠1, and
x is any real number. The inverse of this function is a logarithmic function,
f (x) = logax. In the following sections, we'll review some characteristics
of exponents and logarithms, and see how they apply to functions with
exponents and logarithms. We'll also discuss the number e
2.718281828
and its special relevance to these types of functions. In
the last section we'll take a look at some applications of these functions.