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

Don’t think of “meters” per “second per second”.

Think of “meters per second” per “second”.

An acceleration of 9.8 m/s2 means that every second, you can add an additional 9.8 m/s to your speed.

Your speed is going up 9.8 “meters per second” per “second.”

0 sec. 0 m/s

1 sec. 9.8

2 sec. 19.6

It’s crazy when it hits! But there are even crazier units out there. And they usually seem to “make sense”. Math is nuts!