Talk:Particle in a box

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Physics B‑class High‑importance

	Physics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics
B	This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Particle in a box was nominated as a good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (June 16, 2006, reviewed version). There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.

Comments

User Papa November asked for so comments and feedback.

My primary observation is that this article focuses why to much on explaining how to solve the particle-in-a-box problem in quantum mechanics. Please bear in mind that wikipedia is not a textbooks or a how to guide. As it stands the article reads like a couple of pages from an undergrad physics textbook, not an encyclopedia article. To make the article more encyclopedic I suggest:

Less focus on derivation, just state the result with a proper reference to a derivation. Most importantly, less math more prose. You may want to take some space and just explain in plain English what the main ingredients of the solution are. Remember that many of the potential readers of this article don't 'speak' mathematics, so write in English. In any case the solution should probably precide the derivation.
The properties of the solution could use some more attention on the other hand. Discrete energy levels and nonzero energy groundstate, are typical for quantum systems. It might be worthwhile to elaborate on that a little. It is important to convey how this problem and its solution related to other problems and the real world.
There should be a small history section discussion the who's and when's. Who first proposed the problem, and why? Who first solved it? Did proposing/solving the problem lead to any particular new insights in the development of quantum mechanics?
You might want to discuss the role of this problem in the didactics of quantum mechanics. It is one of the first QM problems undergrads learn to solve. This article should 1) mention this. 2)explain why.
The article should discuss what kind of practical system can be approximated by this model. What are the applications of this model.

Finally, a word of general advice when writting physics articles. Try not to think too much like a physicist, but try to view the text from the perspective of a layman. (TimothyRias (talk) 09:43, 4 September 2009 (UTC))[reply]