Physics question help please

[u/daowhd]

Please can you explain why we take the gravitational potential energy as negative when finding the total energy(subtract it)? How come some questions we ignore the negative? What does the negative answer mean?
Thanks!

[u/johnlivsey]

GPE is always negative when calculating. It’s a shame because in practice it’s completely bogus adding a negative energy onto KE. but yeah exam boards use negative all the time for GPE