Slug (unit)

Okay kiddo, so when we talk about a "slug" in science, we're not talking about a slimy creature like a snail or a worm. Instead, "slug" is a unit of measurement for mass - which is a fancy way of saying how heavy something is.

Let's say you have two things, a small rock and a big rock. Even though the big rock is obviously heavier than the small rock, we can't just say it's "twice as heavy" because we don't know how much heavier it really is. That's where slugs come in.

One slug is actually a really weird way of measuring weight - it's the amount of mass that would be accelerated by one foot per second, squared (or 32.2 feet per second if you're really curious). This probably doesn't make much sense to you, but basically it means that if you had a scale and you put one slug on one side and another object on the other side, you could see how many slugs the other object weighs.

So, next time you hear someone talking about slugs, just remember that they're not talking about slimy creatures, but a way to measure how heavy something is!