Particle in a box
In my original question I was assuming that the energy of the particle was
conserved after changing the size of the box.
Was I wrong in assuming this. Maybee changing the size of the box does work on the particle? Like compressing a gas if there were many particles.
Is...
"Particle in a box" question
The solution of Schrodingers equation for the simple "particle in a box" problem is:
E = (n^2)(h^2) / 8m(L^2)
where L = the length of the box.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/particle_in_a_box"
Say that the initial energy of the particle is E1.
If at...
OK. But how is this applied to a monatomic gas (with many particles).
What is the mechanism by which one atom can only transfer energy to another in discrete amounts? Classically, surely it could transfer any fraction of its energy to another in a collision, giving rise to a smooth...
I understand that a microstate is one possible distribution of energies that make up the system's total energy. But I can't understand why, in a monatomic gas for example (where there is only translational kinetic energy of atoms), there is a finite number of states. Surely that would mean that...