Knots to Meters Per Minute (kn to m/min)

1 knot equals 30.86666667 meters per minute (rounded).

How to convert knots to meters per minute

To convert knots to meters per minute, multiply the number of knots by 30.86666667. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply meters per minute by 0.03239740821 (rounded).

meters per minute = knots × 30.86666667

Example: 10 knots = 308.6666667 meters per minute.

About these units

Knot (kn)

NauticalCurrent unit

One nautical mile per hour, exactly 1.852 km/h. The unit of speed for ships, aircraft and wind.

Knots in a rope really were counted. Before the mid-nineteenth century, sailors threw a weighted wooden board, the chip, off the stern on a line called the log-line. The line carried knots at regular intervals, and a sailor counted how many passed through his fingers while another timed the run with a sandglass. William Bourne's A Regiment for the Sea, printed in 1574, is the first known description, and many ships spaced knots 8 fathoms, about 14.6 meters, apart with a glass of roughly half a minute.

Today a knot is one nautical mile per hour, exactly 1,852 meters per hour, about 1.151 mph or 0.514 m/s. A ship making 1 knot along a meridian covers about one minute of latitude per hour, which is why charts and the unit fit together. It is not an SI unit, and the symbol is kn, though kt is common in aviation. Saying knots per hour is wrong, since that would describe acceleration. The US moved civil aircraft standards to nautical miles and knots in 1969, and winds and currents are also quoted in them.

1 knot = 0.5144444444 meters per second (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Knot (unit); Wikipedia: Chip log; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Meter Per Minute (m/min)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One meter per minute (0.0167 m/s). Used for cutting speeds in machining.

Machine shops quote meter per minute for cutting speed, the relative speed between a tool and the workpiece surface. The Wikipedia article on speeds and feeds gives illustrative values for a plain high-speed steel cutter: roughly 90 to 210 m/min for brass, 122 to 305 m/min for aluminum, and as little as 1 to 2 m/min for medium cast iron, with the figures shifting with coolant and tool material.

The upper aluminum figure of 305 m/min corresponds to about 5.1 m/s, since 305 divided by 60 is 5.08. A speed of one meter per minute is only 0.0167 m/s, or 60 m/h, which shows how slowly hard metals are cut. The unit pairs with surface feet per minute, the other common cutting speed unit, where 1 ft/min is 0.3048 m/min.

1 meter per minute = 0.01666666667 meters per second (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Speeds and feeds; Wikipedia: Metre per second

Related conversions

See all speed units.