Question A.1: Find the number whose log is 5.234....

Recall that \log  x = n, where x = 10^n. In this case n = 5.234. Enter that number in your calculator and find the value of 10^n, the antilog. In this case,

10^{5.234} = 10^{0.234} × 10^5 = 1.71 × 10^5

Notice that the characteristic (5) sets the decimal point; it is the power of 10 in the exponential form. The mantissa (0.234) gives the value of the number x. Thus, if you use a log table to find x, you need only look up 0.234 in the table and see that it corresponds to 1.71.