1

...essentially, why would someone want to look at a logarithmic scale graph? What can be derived from a logarithmic scale graph that makes it worthy of presentation in addition to a linear scale version?

At worldometer on Coronavirus there is a graph in "linear scale" (the default) and a tab with a "logarithmic" scale version.

Here they are:

enter image description here

enter image description here

saulspatz
  • 53,131
user664833
  • 131
  • 5
  • 2
    a) So that the data points are not squashed up one end when there are a few outliers, b) Because the properties being plotted have a logarithmic relationship. c) Consider a radar screen. When objects are close, their exact distance is much more important than objects further away, so a logarithmic scale is useful here. – Weather Vane Mar 06 '20 at 18:29
  • 2
    Almost by definition it is useful for anything that increasing exponentially. For example population growth. The world's population has gone from from $3$ to $7$ and a half billion in about $40$ years wheras in the forty years before it had only gone from $2$ to $3$. and it took nearly $50$ years to get from $1$ billion to $2$ billion and it took thousands of years to get to $1$ billion. Diseases would normally be a good case for logarithmic scales, but so far the corona virus has been pretty linear. – fleablood Mar 06 '20 at 18:47
  • I suppose that so far the answer that most does it for me comes from Intuitive use of logarithms: "plotting (if your scale gets too large)"... though I don't see it being a problem with the current linear graph. Also, the linear graph gives a superior impression of trajectory; the logarithmic curve gives the impression of it slowing down. – user664833 Mar 06 '20 at 23:27
  • It is worth keeping a link to When are Log scales appropriate? – user664833 Mar 06 '20 at 23:31
  • I disagree that this question has been closed because somebody (with lot of reputation) as decided that an answer already exists in another question. I have read this another question and I don't have find any answer. I visit regularly StackOverflow and THIS site seems to consider that all questions are duplicated ! This is very strange. I will vote to reopen the question but the question is closed since more than 19 days and I come on this site every month :-) The question here is WHAT and the answer is WHY ? – schlebe Mar 26 '20 at 07:06

0 Answers0