If something is represented in meters per second, it means the object is changing by x amount of meters every y amount of seconds. But when you have a unit of something similar to, "Meters · Seconds," what exactly does this mean logically?
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$\begingroup$ You ask "what does it mean", but you don't give a context in which that unit is applied. I can't say I'm familiar with the unit of "meter-seconds" (m*s, as distinct from meters per second, or m/s). $\endgroup$– SteveJan 7, 2018 at 14:15
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$\begingroup$ Perhaps my answer makes that clearer? $\endgroup$– QuIcKmAtHsJan 7, 2018 at 14:18
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2$\begingroup$ It is not the combination of units which attaches meaning to a quantity. meters per second doesn't mean anything, but it is is consistent with the concept of speed. $\endgroup$– Bill NJan 7, 2018 at 23:04
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$\begingroup$ It is twoce the temporal cross section area of the speed limited (1 m/s) portion of the light cone. $\endgroup$– safesphereJan 8, 2018 at 2:01
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2$\begingroup$ Possible duplicate of What exactly is a kilogram-meter? $\endgroup$– Kyle KanosJan 8, 2018 at 2:29
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2 Answers
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Say you grow bananapples in your tropical garden. Bananapples are continuously produced by bananapple trees. All your trees are disposed along a 100 meter long line. Say it takes one week to get 100 kilograms of mature bananapples from your trees.
Now you can go to the market and sell your bananapples for 10 euros the $km.hour$
Indeed 100 $meters$ times 604800 $seconds$ (that's a week) is equivalent to 100 $kilograms$ which means that saying you have 1 $kilogram$ of bananapples is the same as saying you have the production of 604800 $m.s$, that is the amount produced after 604800 $seconds$ by one $meter$ of your aligned trees. Then, if I get the math right, 1 $km.h$ is equivalent to 5.95 $grams$ (yes, bananapples are expensive; that's because you do not eat them, you smoke the leaves).
So: what the unit means depends on what you are talking about. What it is proportional to.
answered Jan 7, 2018 at 21:38
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One common such example is kWh, or Wh, which stands for Kilo-watt hour or Watt-hour. This unit is commonly used to calculate electrical bills for our common house electrical appliances. kWh is actually equal to joules, since kWh is the power multiplied by time, and W = J/s. Hence, this is actually just a shifting of units.
answered Jan 7, 2018 at 13:45
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$\begingroup$ So it doesn't mean anything on its own; its just another way of representing a different unit $\endgroup$– BobJan 7, 2018 at 18:02