What happens when you confine a very small particle?

Schrodinger's equation provides a way to describe the wave nature of matter, most important for the small bits of matter that concern chemists. We solve Schrodinger's equation for a model problem of a particle in a 1-D universe, confined to a small line segment, to get the wave functions and the energy. The solution requires using the boundary conditions for the problem, including the condition that the total probability of finding the particle somewhere in the universe is 1. We notice that not every wavefunction of the proper form is allowed, nor is every energy. The solutions are characterized by a quantum number "n".

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