# What the heck is measured in m2 / s2?

1. Oct 21, 2011

### johann1301

What the heck is measured in m2 / s2??

Can somebody tell me what m2 / s2 measures?? A square meter per squared second??

2. Oct 21, 2011

### sophiecentaur

Re: What the heck is measured in m2 / s2??

The rate of change in the growth of an area?

3. Oct 21, 2011

### dacruick

Re: What the heck is measured in m2 / s2??

energy per unit mass!

4. Oct 21, 2011

### Black Integra

Re: What the heck is measured in m2 / s2??

what ever.
I ain't even important.

5. Oct 21, 2011

### Staff: Mentor

Re: What the heck is measured in m2 / s2??

Measured? Nothing. But I suspect the question is really asking about what an energy equation means.

6. Oct 21, 2011

### rcgldr

Re: What the heck is measured in m2 / s2??

My guess is that it's the velocity component for 1 Joule of energy, 1 Joule = 1 kg m2 / s 2, or kinetic energy of an object = 1/2 mass v2 (with v2 stated as m2 / s2 ). ... or it could be related to centripetal acceleration, a = v2 / r.

Last edited: Oct 21, 2011
7. Oct 21, 2011

### Andrew Mason

Re: What the heck is measured in m2 / s2??

Well, it could be a measure of energy per unit mass (above post #3): J/kg = Nm/kg = kg m sec^-2 m kg^-1 = m^2/sec^2

AM

8. Oct 21, 2011

### dacruick

Re: What the heck is measured in m2 / s2??

mwahahaha

9. Jan 27, 2013

### Zimmah

Re: What the heck is measured in m2 / s2??

i'm sorry for necrobumping this old tread, but AM is actually right.

Using bernoulli's equations you can find out the loss of energy due to friction in joule/kg, which is the same as m2/s2.

A joule is the same as a newton times meter, while a newton is the force required to accelerate a mass of 1 kg by 1 meter per second squared. so if you write it out it becomes:

$\frac{J}{kg}$ = $\frac{N*m}{kg}$ = $\frac{kg*m*m}{s²*kg}$ =$\frac{m²}{s²}$

so m2/s2 could refer to the loss of energy per kg due to friction. It's used mostly in hydrodynamics and aerodynamics. Probably also in thermodynamics.

10. Jan 27, 2013

### rcgldr

Re: What the heck is measured in m2 / s2??

Which would make m^2 / s^2 an optional unit form for potential, such as gravitational potential. For example, for object close enough to earth's surface that gravitational force can be considered constant, then gravitational potential = g h = (9.8 m / s^2) (h m) = 9.8 h m^2 / s^2.