Powers in Real Life

Computer storage uses powers of 2: a kilobyte is 2 to the 10th bytes (1,024), a megabyte is 2 to the 20th, a gigabyte is 2 to the 30th. The Richter scale uses powers of 10 — a magnitude 7 earthquake releases about 32 times more energy than a magnitude 6. Powers compress enormous ranges into manageable numbers.

Sound is measured in decibels, another power-of-10 scale. A 20 dB increase means the sound intensity is 100 times greater — 10². These logarithmic scales exist because the quantities they measure span such enormous ranges that linear scales would be useless.