A student says 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?

First, I'd say,

since when is 50 bigger than 140?

50 m/s is faster than 140km/h

if you convert these into miles per hour 50 m/s would be higher, since

50 m/s = 111.85 mph and

140 km/h = 86.99 mph

I would explain to the student that while 50 m/s is a smaller numerical value compared to 140 km/h, it is actually a faster speed. To understand this, we need to consider the units used to express speed.

The unit "m/s" represents meters per second, which tells us how many meters an object travels in one second. On the other hand, "km/h" represents kilometers per hour, which tells us how many kilometers an object travels in one hour.

To compare the two speeds, we need to convert them to a common unit. Let's convert 140 km/h to m/s. To do this, we should divide 140 by 3.6 (since there are 3.6 seconds in one hour). This conversion yields approximately 38.89 m/s.

Now, we can clearly see that 50 m/s is greater than 38.89 m/s. Therefore, even though 50 is numerically smaller than 140, it represents a higher speed when the units are taken into account.