CBSE Class 12-science Answered

It's a convention. Just like electric charges are of two different types, positive and negative. The positive and negative are merely labels to identify them apart. One could have used them interchageable and might have called the positive charge a negative charge.

Similarly forces are generally attractive/repulsive, push/pull type. So you can use a convention as the attractive force using a positive sign, then you have to manage all other convention such as potential energy convection for that force and so on.

Regards,

Team,

TopperLearning.