More Maths/Science help

Greebo

Greebo

Greebo

Caporegime
Joined
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Okay, I need some help on the following. I am comparing three different lab results, two from one lab and one from another. Unfortunately they have reported their findings in different ways.

First lab:

10 to the power of 6.4 and 10 to the power of 6.7

The 2nd lab shows their results as 7.6 log 10.

Now I see it as follows:

10 to the power of 6.4 = 2,511,886
10 to the power of 6.7 = 5,011,872

However I am not a scientist so does 7.6 log 10 mean 10 to the power of 7.6?

If so that will be 39,810,717?
 
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Hmmmm. That is what I thought. log10 7.6 is indeed 0.88081.

However, that does not mean that 7.6 log10 is though?

It's the way they have reported their results which confuse me and it may just be a scientific thing.

to me log10 7.6 would be meaningless as why not report it as 0.88081. The other problem is this is counting the number of active proteins in a sample. 0.88081 does not seem a good answer especially when the expected result is to be in the miilions:confused:

To me what they are trying say is that the count number is the number which when having log 10 applied gives 7.6?

so as per y = log10(x) then 7.6 = log10(x)

Does that makes sense? Has anybody come across that way of reporting it?
 
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lord filbuster said:
I don't think so. If you assume log= log to the base ten, then 7.6log10 is just 7.6. If log= log to the base e, 7.6log(10) is about 17.6.
Click to expand...

As much as my maths brain screams you are right, I think it's just a science way of posting the results badly. Afterall, when your expected answer is millions then 17.6 doesn't make any sense either. :confused:
 
Scientists aren't always good mathematicians ;)

I will go and cut and paste the relevant section. The 10 is subscript and I should have made that clear. There is no other numbers after the 10 and this "7.6 log 10" is referred to many times in the report.

As for apples and oranges, both reports from both labs were testing for the same thing. Expected results are in the millions. The higher, the better the result.

If it's any help, the 2nd lab is French!
 
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Here you go boys:

Suspension for injection containing inactivated Bluetongue Virus serotype 8 antigen, at least 7.1 (log10)* per 1-ml dose, to stimulate active and specific immunity against Bluetongue Virus serotype 8 in cattle and sheep.*CCID50 Equivalent to titre prior to inactivation
Click to expand...

CCID50 = Cell Culture Infectous Dose to kill 50% of the cells

both 10 and 50 in subscript.

Sorry, I forgot the log10 was in brackets if that makes any difference?
 
Just to further clarify as this is for my gf and she asked me as I am (was) good at maths.

The first two are vaccines and are reported to be not as good as the third one.

It is a measure of the number of virus particles in each dose hence millions are the expected answer.

The first two report it as 10 to the power of x which is how I would have decribed it as a mathematician.

The third one confused me as well as made little sense and seemed a very odd way of describing the same thing.

Also, since first looking at the paper they have now lowered the figure from 7.6 to 7.1 in case people were wondering about that as well ;)

Thanks for your help guys. I have given her the ocuk answer that it is indeed 10 to the power of 7.1 as voted by the majority at ocuk :D
 
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