Talk:Absorbance
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[edit] Natural log or log base 10
"Outside the field of analytical chemistry, the absorbance is sometimes defined as the natural logarithm instead of the base-10 logarithm." is what is said in the article, but I cannot figure out if that means the logarithm depicted is base 10 or the natural logarithm. Logically, I don't see how 10 could appear in the nature of light and absorbance, so I think that it is the natural logarithm. I am going to change it to LN, but if thats not right, somebody correct me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by EulerGamma (talk • contribs)
- I'm under the impression that the reason it is converted to a logarith, is so the numbers are easier to work with. The choice of of a natural log or a base 10 log would be determined by whether you prefer for work in powers of 10 or powers of e, and not based on any phsyical property of light. I think it makes more sense to express is as a log base 10 in this article, since the other articles relating to this one (optical density and transmittance) use log base 10.
It's converted to Log because of the Beer-Lambert Law. The log is directly related to concentration. Also the absorbance is often reported as optical density or OD as the unit. The Log should be base 10 because that is the most common use. Clearly the choice of base is otherwise arbitrary.
