somebody explain the idea of acceleration units to me. The whole “seconds squared” or “seconds per second” makes no sense to me.

Question

Like if a car starts at rest and moves at 4m/s^2 for 10seconds, what does that mean?

Does it mean the car is exponentially increasing in speed? Can someone draw it out for me second by second?

Edit:
***I have a follow up question to several of y’all’s responses in how the concept of acceleration relates to one of the big kinematics equations as well. That’s one of the big discrepancies I’m having trouble understanding***

In: 9

Answer 1

It’s a lot easier to think of it as meters per second, per second. Because m/s /s = m/(s*s) = m/s^2
If you think of it as meters per second, per second, you can see how a car’s velocity can change by 3 meters per second, per second of time passed.