Question

A student says that a speed of 50 m/s is faster than a speed of 140 km/h because the number is bigger. What would you say to them?
Pls can someone help me pls!
It’s so important!!!!

Answer 1

The units are not consistent - 1 m/s is not the same as 1 km/h.

First thing to do would be to convert from one unit of speed to the other, say km/h to m/s. There are 1000 meters (m) for every kilometer (km) and 3600 seconds (s) for every hour (h), so

$1\,\dfrac{\mathrm{km}}{\mathrm h}\cdot\dfrac{10^3\,\mathrm m}{\mathrm{km}}\cdot\dfrac{\mathrm h}{3600\,\mathrm s}\approx0.278\,\dfrac{\mathrm m}{\mathrm s}$

So in fact 1 km/h is about 4 times slower than 1 m/s.