Question

When an object is dropped from the top of a tall cliff, your teacher tells you to use -10 m/s2 for the approximate acceleration due to gravity. What sign should the displacement of the object have and why?

Answer 1

negative

Step-by-step explanation:

According to the vector analysis, the direction which is downwards is taken a negative and the direction which is taken as upwards is taken as positive.

Similarly, the direction rightwards is taken as positive while the direction leftwards taken as negative.

Here, the origin is assumed at the point from where the object is dropped.

As the object comes down from the origin point, so the displacement taken is negative in sign.

As the acceleration due to gravity acts always downwards so it also taken as negative as the teacher gave.