PH 122 Chapter Notes - Chapter 39: Correspondence Principle, Electron Rest Mass, Photon
Document Summary
Chapter 39 more about matter waves: the confinement principle states that confinement of any type of wave leads to quantization, which means that the wave is restricted to discrete states with certain energies. States with intermediate energies are not allowed within confinement: electrons confined to an infinitely deep potential energy well or infinite potential well can exist in only certain discrete states. The electron can jump from one quantum state to another state only if its energy change is equal to the difference between the higher energy ( to the lower energy ( If change occurs by photon absorption or emission, the energy of the photon must be equal to the change in the electron"s energy: Thus, the equation is also referred to as the normalization equation: confined systems in quantum physics require a state of minimum energy referred to as the zero-point energy that cannot be a quantum number of zero.
