Another way to represent an exponential equation is by using logarithms. 

Suppose you have 5^x = 33 and you want to solve for x. That is difficult as it is set up. It can be made easier by using logarithms.

We rewrite the exponential equation above in logarithmic form as follow:

log (base b) y = x is the same ax b^x = y.

In our example, the logarthmic equivalent is log (base 5) 33 = x.

Using the change of base formula you get log 33/log 5 = x.  This can be solve on a calculator to get 2.1725. We can check this by substituting for x in the equation to get 5^(2.1725) which is approximately 30.