Ed, I don't know what the problem is, but you can try another
units package, which is somewhat different. You have to
distinguish the units from the quantity with a ` (backtick).
load (ezunits);
sqrt (1 ` m^2/s^2);
=> 1 ` abs(m)/abs(s)
sqrt (2 ` m^2/s^2);
=> sqrt(2) ` abs(m)/abs(s)
Now that I look at this, it's obvious that Maxima should know m and s
should be treated as positive, so that the resulting unit is m/s.
I'll put it on the to-do list -- not sure what can be done there.
If you have any further comments I would be interested to hear about it.
HTH
Robert Dodier