The relation with no clock in it
Sometimes nobody timed anything. You have a starting speed, a finishing speed, an acceleration and a distance — and not one second between them. For exactly that case there is , read v squared equals v-nought squared plus two a d. The cast, once more: is the final velocity in m/s, the initial velocity in m/s, the acceleration in , the displacement in metres. No anywhere, by construction — it is what you get when you solve for t and substitute it into the position function. The clock cancels itself out on the way through.
The square is the physics, not the algebra. Because speed enters SQUARED, doubling a vehicle's speed quadruples the distance it needs to stop — the single most useful fact any driver ever learns from a mathematics class. Whenever you meet a v² relation, expect the consequences to be steeper than they feel.
Two slips live here and both are worth naming out loud. One: forgetting to square — it is squared on the right just as surely as v is on the left. Two: forgetting to take the root at the end. This relation hands you , a number wearing , and a speed is not a speed until the root has run. Check the units of what you are about to write down; if they are squared, you are not finished.