Metre per second (U.S. spelling: meter per second) is an SI derived unit of both speed (scalar) and velocity (vector quantity which specifies both magnitude and a specific direction), defined by distance in metres divided by time in seconds.
The official SI symbolic abbreviation is m·s −1 , or equivalently, m/s; although the abbreviation mps is sometimes used colloquially. Where metres per second are several orders of magnitude too slow to be convenient, such as in astronomical measurements, velocities may be given in terms of kilometres per second, where 1 km/s is equivalent to 1,000 metres per second; in popular, non-science literature kps is occasionally used instead of km/s.
One metre per second is roughly the speed of an average person walking.
