Newtons to Meganewtons (N to MN)

1 newton equals 0.000001 meganewtons exactly.

How to convert newtons to meganewtons

To convert newtons to meganewtons, multiply the number of newtons by 0.000001. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply meganewtons by 1,000,000.

meganewtons = newtons × 0.000001

Example: 10 newtons = 0.00001 meganewtons.

About these units

Newton (N)

Metric (SI)Current unit

The SI unit of force: the force that accelerates one kilogram by one meter per second squared. About the weight of a small apple.

Isaac Newton gave his name to the unit for his second law of motion, force equals mass times acceleration. Metric engineers needed a force unit that fitted the metre-kilogram-second system, and the CGPM standardized one in 1946; the 9th CGPM in 1948 adopted the name newton, with symbol N. Before that, many metric users measured force in kilograms-force, which confuses weight with mass, and CGS users had the much smaller dyne.

One newton is the force that gives a one-kilogram mass an acceleration of one meter per second every second. For scale, a 200-gram apple weighs about 1.96 N on Earth, so a newton is roughly the weight of a small apple. It equals 100,000 dynes and about 0.225 pound-force. Forces in the thousands are written in kilonewtons. Because the newton is built directly from kilograms, meters and seconds, it slots into formulas for pressure, energy and power without any conversion constants.

The newton is the reference unit for force on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Newton (unit); BIPM: 9th CGPM (1948), Resolution 7; Wikipedia: Centimetre-gram-second system of units

Meganewton (MN)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One million newtons. Used for rocket thrust.

Rocket launches are where the meganewton shows up most often. The Saturn V is listed at 34.5 MN of thrust at liftoff, a figure that would read as 34,500,000 N if written in plain newtons. The unit is simply the SI multiple 10^6 N, formed with the prefix mega, and the newton itself was named after Isaac Newton when the 9th General Conference on Weights and Measures adopted the name in 1948.

Civil engineers meet it too, since the loads carried by bridge cables, dam gates and building foundations are naturally counted in millions of newtons. It sits above the kilonewton, which Wikipedia notes as the scale of a steam locomotive's tractive effort or a jet engine's thrust, at roughly 130 kN. One meganewton is 1,000 kN, and in the older non-metric units it works out to about 225,000 pounds-force or roughly 102 tonnes-force, using 4.4482 N per pound-force and 9.80665 N per kilogram-force.

1 meganewton = 1,000,000 newtons (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Newton (unit); Wikipedia: Saturn V; Wikipedia: Pound (force)

Related conversions

See all force units.