Hello!
So, my friend was asking me about this...and I thought I'll post here for everyone! It may seem simple, but it will certainly be useful if you understand this!
Firstly, in maths, we see units like, m/s, m/s^2 and cm^2, cm^3 etc? Have you ever wondered...just what it means?
Taking an example: A car was traveling at 60km/hr.
This actually means that the car travels at the speed which will allow it to cover 11km in one hour. Now, a common question will be to ask you, what's the speed of the car in m/s?
To convert, we first convert the units one by one. Remember that when you convert the units, you change the numbers too!
36km/hr = 36km/60mins = 0.6km/min = 0.6km/60secs = 0.01km/s = 10m/s
(You can also convert the distance to m first then tackle the time. Works either way.)
So what if I tell you that the car starts from rest and accelerate at 5m/s^2 for 10 seconds? What is the final speed of the car?
"accelerate at 5m/s^2" basically means that the car gains a speed of 5m/s every second. After 10 seconds, the speed of the car is 5m/s^2 times 10 seconds = 50m/s
...Okay so I'm side-tracking. What I meant to say is, look at the units.
__m x __m = ___m^2
__m divide by __secs = __ m/s
__m/s divide by __secs = __m/s^2
See a pattern? Whatever you do to the numbers, you also do to the units. If it's like this, we can easily see that:
m^2 (area) is m (length) times m (length)
m/s (speed) is m (distance) over s (time)
m/s^2 (acceleration) is m/s (which is speed) over s (time)
So when in doubt what to write as the unit, look at what you use. When in doubt what the numbers represent, look at the units too.
So, my friend was asking me about this...and I thought I'll post here for everyone! It may seem simple, but it will certainly be useful if you understand this!
Firstly, in maths, we see units like, m/s, m/s^2 and cm^2, cm^3 etc? Have you ever wondered...just what it means?
Taking an example: A car was traveling at 60km/hr.
This actually means that the car travels at the speed which will allow it to cover 11km in one hour. Now, a common question will be to ask you, what's the speed of the car in m/s?
To convert, we first convert the units one by one. Remember that when you convert the units, you change the numbers too!
36km/hr = 36km/60mins = 0.6km/min = 0.6km/60secs = 0.01km/s = 10m/s
(You can also convert the distance to m first then tackle the time. Works either way.)
So what if I tell you that the car starts from rest and accelerate at 5m/s^2 for 10 seconds? What is the final speed of the car?
"accelerate at 5m/s^2" basically means that the car gains a speed of 5m/s every second. After 10 seconds, the speed of the car is 5m/s^2 times 10 seconds = 50m/s
...Okay so I'm side-tracking. What I meant to say is, look at the units.
__m x __m = ___m^2
__m divide by __secs = __ m/s
__m/s divide by __secs = __m/s^2
See a pattern? Whatever you do to the numbers, you also do to the units. If it's like this, we can easily see that:
m^2 (area) is m (length) times m (length)
m/s (speed) is m (distance) over s (time)
m/s^2 (acceleration) is m/s (which is speed) over s (time)
So when in doubt what to write as the unit, look at what you use. When in doubt what the numbers represent, look at the units too.
