- #1
Hamiltonian
- 296
- 193
the gravitational potential energy of a body at any point is defined to be negative of the work done by the conservative force(gravity in this case) from bringing it to that point from a given reference point. if the reference point is taken to be at infinity and the potential energy at this point is taken to be zero, shouldn't the gravitational potential energy at a point closer to the source be positive because the gravitational force is attractive and on moving a body away from infinity(toward the source i.e. the distance between the body and source is decreasing) the conservative force(gravity) will do +ve work on it and not -ve and hence the potential energy at this point should hence be +vealso, does potential energy on its own have any significance or its actually change in potential energy that has some physical meaning?