How does the unit used to measure acceleration actually work?

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The unit to measure speed is m/s which in a straightforward manner implies that x metres is covered per second however the unit for acceleration is m/s^2 which is kind of making it difficult to understand how it works..

I had this thought in the middle of a physics test and have been pondering ever since. Would be great if someone could eli5.

In: Physics

16 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Acceleration can also be written as (m/s)/s. To help visualize it, let’s use an acceleration of 1 m/s^(2). Again, we expand that to 1 (m/s)/s. What this means is that, for every second that something is accelerating, 1 m/s is added to the speed.

After the first second, the object is going at 1 m/s. After the second second, it’s going 2 m/s. After the third, 3 m/s, etc.

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