The metre per second squared is the

unit Unit may refer to: Arts and entertainment * UNIT, a fictional military organization in the science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'' * Unit of action, a discrete piece of action (or beat) in a theatrical presentation Music * ''Unit'' (alb ...

acceleration In mechanics, acceleration is the rate of change of the velocity of an object with respect to time. Accelerations are vector quantities (in that they have magnitude and direction). The orientation of an object's acceleration is given by the ...

in the

International System of Units The International System of Units, known by the international abbreviation SI in all languages and sometimes pleonastically as the SI system, is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. E ...

(SI). As a

derived unit SI derived units are units of measurement derived from the seven base units specified by the International System of Units (SI). They can be expressed as a product (or ratio) of one or more of the base units, possibly scaled by an appropriate ...

, it is composed from the

SI base unit The SI base units are the standard units of measurement defined by the International System of Units (SI) for the seven base quantities of what is now known as the International System of Quantities: they are notably a basic set from which all ...

s of length, the

metre The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...

, and time, the

second The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...

. Its symbol is written in several forms as m/s², m·s⁻² or ms⁻²,

, or less commonly, as m/s/s. As acceleration, the unit is interpreted physically as change in velocity or speed per time interval, i.e. metre per second per

and is treated as a vector quantity.

Example

An object experiences a constant acceleration of one metre per second squared (1 m/s²) from a state of rest, then it achieves the speed of 5 m/s after 5 seconds and 10 m/s after 10 seconds. The average acceleration ''a'' can be calculated by dividing the speed ''v'' (m/s) by the time ''t'' (s), so the average acceleration in the first example would be calculated:

a = \frac = \frac = 1\text = 1\text^2

Related units

Newton's second law Newton's laws of motion are three basic laws of classical mechanics that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws can be paraphrased as follows: # A body remains at rest, or in motion ...

states that force equals mass multiplied by acceleration. The unit of force is the newton (N), and mass has the SI unit

kilogram The kilogram (also kilogramme) is the unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), having the unit symbol kg. It is a widely used measure in science, engineering and commerce worldwide, and is often simply called a kilo colloquially ...

(kg). One newton equals one

metre per second squared. Therefore, the unit metre per second squared is equivalent to newton per kilogram, N·kg⁻¹, or N/kg.Kirk, Tim: ''Physics for the IB Diploma; Standard and Higher Level'', Page 61, Oxford University Press, 2003. Thus, the Earth's gravitational field (near ground level) can be quoted as 9.8 metres per second squared, or the equivalent 9.8 N/kg. Acceleration can be measured in ratios to gravity, such as

g-force The gravitational force equivalent, or, more commonly, g-force, is a measurement of the type of force per unit mass – typically acceleration – that causes a perception of weight, with a g-force of 1 g (not gram in mass measure ...

, and

peak ground acceleration Peak ground acceleration (PGA) is equal to the maximum ground acceleration that occurred during earthquake shaking at a location. PGA is equal to the amplitude of the largest absolute acceleration recorded on an wikt:accelerogram, accelerogram at a ...

in earthquakes.

Unicode character

The "metre per second squared" symbol is encoded by

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

at code point . This is for compatibility with East Asian encodings and not intended to be used in new documents.

Conversions

References

Units of acceleration SI derived units {{measurement-stub

Example

Related units

Unicode character

Conversions

See also

References