速度・距離・時間計算機

The one relationship behind three formulas

Speed, distance, and time are not three separate ideas — they are three views of a single equation. Speed is simply how much distance you cover per unit of time, so speed = distance ÷ time. Rearrange that one statement algebraically and the other two formulas fall out: multiply both sides by time to get distance = speed × time, or divide distance by speed to get time = distance ÷ speed. The calculator above exposes all three as tabs, but under the hood it is solving the same proportional relationship every time. If you remember the triangle — distance on top, speed and time on the bottom — you can reconstruct any formula by covering the value you want to find.

Why units are where people actually go wrong

The arithmetic is easy; the units are what trip people up. You cannot divide kilometres by hours and expect metres per second. To stay consistent, this tool converts every input to SI base units first — metres for distance and seconds for time — does the calculation there, then converts the answer back into whatever output unit you selected. Internally it uses exact factors: 1 mile = 1609.344 m, 1 knot = 0.514444 m/s, and km/h = m/s divided by 3.6. That means you can mix units freely: enter a distance in miles, a time in minutes, and read the speed in knots, and the conversions are handled for you.

A worked example, step by step

Suppose a train covers 240 km in 1 hour 30 minutes and you want its speed in mph. First convert to base units: 240 km is 240,000 m, and 1.5 hours is 5,400 s. Speed in m/s is 240000 ÷ 5400 = 44.44 m/s. To express that in mph, divide by the mph factor 0.44704: 44.44 ÷ 0.44704 ≈ 99.4 mph. The calculator rounds results to four significant figures, so it would display roughly 99.42 mph. Try changing the output unit to km/h and the same internal 44.44 m/s becomes 160 km/h — the journey hasn't changed, only the label.

Common use cases

• Trip planning. Know the distance and your average speed, switch to the "Find Time" tab, and get an honest arrival estimate before you set off.
• Running and cycling pace. Athletes flip between speed (km/h) and pace; enter your distance and time to see the speed that matches a target.
• Physics and homework. The formula is shown beneath every result, so it doubles as a check on hand calculations.
• Logistics and aviation. Knots and nautical contexts are supported, which matters when ground-school problems mix imperial and metric.

Practical tips

• This is average speed, not instantaneous. Covering 100 km in one hour gives an average of 100 km/h even if you stopped twice and sped up in between. The formula says nothing about what happened moment to moment.
• Watch the difference between 1.5 hours and 1 hour 30 minutes typed as 1.30. Time entered as a decimal must be a true decimal: ninety minutes is 1.5 hr, not 1.30. If you have minutes and seconds, switch the unit selector rather than guessing the decimal.
• Pick the output unit that matches your intuition. A pace of 12.5 m/s means little; the same value shown as 45 km/h is instantly readable. The unit dropdown is there to make answers sanity-checkable.

Common mistakes the tool prevents — and ones it can't

The calculator guards against the obvious traps: it rejects negative values, and dividing by zero time or zero speed returns an infinity symbol rather than a misleading number, because a body that moves any distance in zero time would have infinite speed. What it cannot catch is a wrong assumption on your part. If your "average speed" already accounts for stops but you also pad the time for rest breaks, you double-count and overestimate the journey. Likewise, real driving rarely sustains a posted average — traffic, junctions, and acceleration all eat into it, so treat a clean distance ÷ speed result as a best case and add a margin for anything that matters.