I came across this logarithm equation and can't seem to figure out how to solve it.
$$lg(2x-24)=2+ \frac 13 lg8 – \frac 14 x lg16$$
I only managed to simplify all the way till $$100=(x-12)(2^x)$$ (based on assumption of base 10)
Would gladly appreciate if anyone could suggest a trick to solve this.
Edit: Could give some benefit of doubt to whether the log is base 2 or 10. Any solutions are welcomed.
Best Answer
Assuming your logs are base $2$ we have $$\lg(2x-24)=2+ \frac 13 \lg8 - \frac 14 x \lg16\\ \lg(x-12)+1=2+1-x\\ lg(x-12)=2-x\\x-12=2^{2-x}\\ 2^x(x-12)=4$$ Clearly $x$ has to be just barely greater than $12$, so let $x=12+y$ Then we have $$y=\frac 1{1024\cdot 2^y}$$ This needs a numeric solution and is in a good form as the right side will change slowly with $y$. Let $y_0=0$ and iterate. After two iterations we have converged to $0.000975902$. Alpha will give you a solution of $y=\frac {W\left(\frac {\log 2}{1024}\right)}{\log 2}$in terms of the Lambert W function where these logs are natural logs.
Added: for base $10$ logs we can do the same. Again $x$ has to be a little greater than $12$ so write $x=12+y$ The equation becomes $$y=\frac {25}{1024\cdot 2^y}$$ which converges to $y\approx 0.0240$