I Force of an Electron on a Potential Wall?

HarrisonG
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I've been looking at a practice test for an introductory class in quantum physics, and I've found a really weird question. It asks for an estimation of the force that an electron exerts on the walls of a box of known length during a collision.

This seems like an entirely nonsense thing to ask to me, but I'm wondering if anyone can see an angle from which this question makes sense.

Edit: Here's the exact question:
"Consider an electron in a box with width a = 1 A (angstrom). Give an estimation of the force exerted by the electron on the box walls during an impact."
 
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Please quote the question verbatim.
 
"Consider an electron in a box with width a = 1 A (angstrom). Give an estimation of the force exerted by the electron on the box walls during an impact."
 
What quantum state would you expect the electron to be in? What are the properties of that state?
 
HarrisonG said:
"Consider an electron in a box with width a = 1 A (angstrom). Give an estimation of the force exerted by the electron on the box walls during an impact."
In this context, what is a box and what exactly is a wall?
 
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Would it help to have an estimate of the electron's momentum?
 
HarrisonG said:
I've been looking at a practice test for an introductory class in quantum physics, and I've found a really weird question.
You might have more luck in the HH forums, because the template requires certain steps. If nothing else, there will be a verbatim statement of the problem and an attempt at a solution so we would have a more well-defined starting point.
 
HarrisonG said:
"Consider an electron in a box with width a = 1 A (angstrom). Give an estimation of the force exerted by the electron on the box walls during an impact."
The problem I have is with the phrase I colored red. What does that even mean in this context?? The question can ask about an average force on the containing wall but as stated it is fraught. The route I would suggest is to assume a hard wall (infinite potential) and box size a, solve for the expected ground state energy and associate the force with the derivative of that energy w.r.t. the size a of the box. What do you get?
I would worry a bit about the prof here......
 
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