General Question Physics and Math

Princeton MCAT Content Review

Q work is a scalar and uses the magnitudes of forces and displacement. However, with potential energy the grav force can be negative. Is this just to differentiate the direction of the force to the height of the object, or is direction really taken into account for work when it comes to gravitational potential?

Yes, but for work isnt the magnitudes only taken into account since work is scalar?

The positive or negative work comes from cosine of the angle which just tells us if the force and displacement are in the same direction, and nothing more.

So with gravitational potential energy can the -fgrav just act like the cos angle? The direction of the force itself does not matter but relative to the displacement it does.