Galileo defined speed as the distance covered per unit of time. Italian physicist Galileo Galilei is usually credited with being the first to measure speed by considering the distance covered and the time it takes. In relativity physics, the concept of rapidity replaces the classical idea of speed. Matter cannot quite reach the speed of light, as this would require an infinite amount of energy. The fastest possible speed at which energy or information can travel, according to special relativity, is the speed of light in vacuum c = 299 792 458 metres per second (approximately 1 079 000 000 km/h or 671 000 000 mph). For air and marine travel, the knot is commonly used. The SI unit of speed is the metre per second (m/s), but the most common unit of speed in everyday usage is the kilometre per hour (km/h) or, in the US and the UK, miles per hour (mph). Speed has the dimensions of distance divided by time.

The average speed of an object in an interval of time is the distance travelled by the object divided by the duration of the interval the instantaneous speed is the limit of the average speed as the duration of the time interval approaches zero. In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as v) of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time it is thus a scalar quantity.

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