Introduction
The Acceleration Calculator helps you find how fast things speed up or slow down. Acceleration tells us how quickly an object changes its speed. When a car goes from stopped to moving, or when you hit the brakes, that's acceleration at work.
This tool works with four different ways to calculate acceleration. You can use speed and time, distance and time, force and mass, or mix different measurements together. Whether you're solving homework problems, checking car performance, or understanding physics in daily life, this calculator makes the math simple. Just enter the numbers you know, pick your units, and the calculator does the rest. It works with metric units like meters per second squared, imperial units like feet per second squared, and even g-forces that pilots and astronauts experience.
How to use our Acceleration Calculator
Enter your known values like speed and time to find how fast something speeds up or slows down. The calculator will show the acceleration in your chosen units.
Calculation Mode: Pick which type of problem you want to solve - use Kinematic for speed and time problems, Distance-Based when you know how far something traveled, or Force-Based when you know the push or pull on an object.
Solve For: Choose what you want to find - pick Acceleration to find how fast speed changes, or select other options like Initial Velocity, Final Velocity, or Time to solve for those instead.
Initial Velocity: Type the starting speed of your object and pick the right unit like meters per second or miles per hour.
Final Velocity: Enter the ending speed after the object has sped up or slowed down.
Time: Put in how long the speed change takes - you can use simple time or click the switch to enter days, hours, minutes, and seconds separately.
Distance: When using Distance-Based mode, enter how far the object traveled during the speed change.
Force and Mass: In Force-Based mode, type the push or pull force and the weight of the object to find acceleration. You can also use our Force Calculator to explore how force, mass, and acceleration relate to each other.
Decimal Precision: Choose how many numbers to show after the decimal point for more or less exact answers.
Calculate Button: Click this button to get your answer - the result will appear below with helpful comparisons to real-world examples.
Understanding Acceleration
Acceleration is how fast something changes its speed. When you ride a bike and pedal harder, you speed up - that's acceleration. When you hit the brakes, you slow down - that's also acceleration, but in the opposite direction. We measure acceleration by looking at how much the speed changes over time.
How Acceleration Works
Think of acceleration like pushing a shopping cart. When you start pushing, the cart goes from standing still to moving. The harder you push, the faster it speeds up. That change from not moving to moving (or from slow to fast) is what we call acceleration. It happens any time speed changes - whether getting faster, slower, or changing direction.
Types of Acceleration
There are different ways things can accelerate. Positive acceleration means speeding up, like when a car leaves a stop sign. Negative acceleration (also called deceleration) means slowing down, like when that same car approaches a red light. Even turning a corner at the same speed is acceleration because the direction changes.
Measuring Acceleration
We measure acceleration in units like meters per second squared (m/s²). This tells us how many meters per second the speed changes each second. For example, if a car has an acceleration of 2 m/s², its speed increases by 2 meters per second every second. Earth's gravity causes things to accelerate at about 9.8 m/s² when they fall. You can explore this further with our Free Fall Calculator to see how gravity affects falling objects.