Newtons to Millinewtons (N to mN)

1 newton equals 1,000 millinewtons exactly.

How to convert newtons to millinewtons

To convert newtons to millinewtons, multiply the number of newtons by 1,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply millinewtons by 0.001.

millinewtons = newtons × 1,000

Example: 10 newtons = 10,000 millinewtons.

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

Millinewton (mN)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One thousandth of a newton. Used for very small forces.

At the other end of the scale, a millinewton is one thousandth of a newton, a force so small that an apple weighing 200 g, which Wikipedia puts at about 1.96 N, would press down with nearly two thousand of them. The unit is the SI multiple 10^-3 N, formed with the prefix milli, and it suits measurements of delicate forces in laboratory work.

The abbreviation mN also appears in a closely related but different quantity. Surface tension is a force per unit length, so it is quoted in millinewtons per metre, and water at 20 degrees Celsius comes to about 72.8 mN/m. That figure equals 72.8 dyn/cm in the older centimetre-gram-second system, since one dyne per centimetre and one millinewton per metre are the same. In plain force terms, 1 mN is 100 dynes, or about 0.0000102 kilogram-force.

1 millinewton = 0.001 newtons (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Newton (unit); Wikipedia: Surface tension

Related conversions

See all force units.