Meter/hour to Meter/second Converter

The conversion factor of 3600 comes from the relationship between hours and seconds in the metric time system:

• 1 hour = 60 minutes
• 1 minute = 60 seconds
• Therefore: 1 hour = 60 × 60 = 3600 seconds

When converting from meters per hour to meters per second, you're essentially dividing by the number of seconds in an hour to get the per-second rate. This is why 1 meter per hour equals 1/3600 meters per second (approximately 0.0002778 m/s).

Meters per hour (m/h) is typically used for measuring relatively slow speeds where using meters per second would result in very small decimal numbers. Common applications include:

• Slow-moving machinery: Conveyor belts, assembly lines, and industrial robots that move at a gradual pace
• Biological movements: Speed of snails, sloths, turtles, and other slow-moving organisms
• Geological processes: Movement of glaciers, tectonic plates, or erosion rates
• Fluid dynamics: Slow flow rates in certain industrial processes or environmental studies
• Agricultural applications: Movement speed of irrigation systems or harvesting equipment

In these contexts, using m/h provides more intuitive, whole-number values compared to m/s, which would often require scientific notation or many decimal places.

Meters per hour (m/h) and meters per second (m/s) relate to other common speed units as follows:

These conversions allow you to relate metric speed measurements to the imperial system commonly used in countries like the United States.

Meters per second (m/s) is the standard unit for speed in scientific contexts and the International System of Units (SI) for several reasons:

• Coherence with SI units: It aligns with the base SI units (meters for length, seconds for time), making calculations in physics and engineering more straightforward
• Precision: The second is a highly precise and universally defined unit of time (based on atomic vibrations)
• Scalability: It works well for both very small and very large speeds when combined with metric prefixes (mm/s, km/s, etc.)
• Consistency in formulas: Many physical formulas (like kinetic energy, momentum) yield results in SI units when using m/s for speed
• International adoption: It's recognized and used globally, facilitating international scientific collaboration

For example, in physics, acceleration is measured in meters per second squared (m/s²), which directly builds upon m/s as the base unit for speed.

The required precision for speed conversions depends on your specific application:

• Everyday use and general reference: 2-3 decimal places is sufficient (e.g., estimating travel times, general speed comparisons)
• Engineering and technical applications: 3-4 decimal places for design specifications or equipment calibration
• Scientific research: 4+ decimal places for experiments, data analysis, and publication requirements
• Slow speeds (m/h range): More decimal places are often needed since the converted values (in m/s) are typically very small

This converter allows you to select 0-4 decimal places to match your needs. For most practical purposes, 3 decimal places provide a good balance between precision and readability.