Dear Uncle Colin,

How would you work out (45)10 in your head?

- Probability Estimation Needed, Relic Of Slide-rule Era

Hi, PENROSE, and thanks for your message!

That’s really two questions: how I would do it, and how the Mathematical Ninja would do it.

Me

Me, I’d probably use the fact that (11n)n goes to 1e as n gets large. What we have is (115)10, which should be approximately e2, which is about 0.135.

The Mathematical Ninja

“Ha! I don’t believe I have to tell you this, but five is not large.”

“Depends on what you compare it with, sensei.”

“You can do much better by saying ln(45)29.”

“Why is that?”

A sigh. “ln(1+x)x+12x2. ln(1x)x+12x2. So ln(1x1+x)2x, give or take a cubic term.”

“… and the ninth?”

“That’s not a ninth. That’s a ninth. Oh, er… yes, if you solve 1x1+x=45, you find x=19 (shortcut: it’s the difference, 5-4 over the sum, 5+4).”

“OK, so I buy that ln(45)29.”

“Then the logarithm of the thing we want is roughly 209, so we want e209.”

“I suppose you happen to know what that is?”

“Well, e2.209, so e2.222 will be about 2% less than a ninth. A smidge less than 0.11 is about as close as I’d go.”

“0.1073, says the calculator I’m totally not looking at right now.”


Hope that helps!

- Uncle Colin (and The Mathematical Ninja)