Question #f8647
1 Answer
Oct 10, 2015
Its all about conventions.
Explanation:
The direction of torque is given by the curling your right hand fingers along the direction of force and your thumb points to the direction of the torque. Since people used to take the positive axes' direction to be positive, torque in anti-clockwise direction is taken positive as your thumb points towards you.
You may take any convention (taking clockwise torque is positive or negative) but use the same convention throughout the problem until you solve it; you'll get the same solution.
