Changing nautical miles to speed in meters

by Faye
(MS)

Question

The rate of one knot equals one nautical mile per hour. One nautical mile is 1852 meters. What is the speed in meters per second of a ship traveling at 20 knots?

Answer

STEP 1: We are asked to find the speed, in meters per second, of a ship traveling at 20 knots. We know that the rate of one knot equals one nautical mile per hour, and that one nautical mile is equal to 1852 meters. The first step is to express the rate of one knot in meters per hour.

Since one nautical mile equals 1852 meters, the rate of one knot equals 1852 meters per hour.

STEP 2: Now, let us express 20 knots in meters per hour.

We get the speed of the ship traveling at 20 knots as 37,040 meters per hour.

STEP 3: The final step is to convert the speed we obtained in meters per hour to meters per second. We know that 1 hour is 3600 seconds. Divide the speed in meters per hour by 3600 to get it in meters per second.