[Physics] Particle in a box, quantization of energy

boundary conditionsdiscreteenergyquantum mechanics

I'm learning about how the energy of matter is quantized like how the energy of light is. My textbook illustrates the concept of quantization with the particle in a box:

"A particle of mass $m$ moves in one dimension as it bounces back and forth with speed $v$ between the ends of the box of length $L$. We'll assume that the collisions at the ends are perfectly elastic, so the particle's energy–entirely kinetic–never changes."

I don't understand how the particle's energy can be "entirely kinetic." When the particle hits the end of the the box and reverses its direction, isn't there an instance in time where the particle's speed is 0 which would imply that all of its energy is now potential energy and that it's kinetic energy is zero?

Best Answer

The walls do not really matter that much here. I would say that the only points that matter to understand that quote are:

  1. The confining potential is conservative so that $K+U = constant$
  2. The confining potential is virtually flat $U = 0$ almost everywhere inside the box (say 99% of the box) except very close to the walls

These two conditions are enough to say that the total energy of the particle (its value) is the kinetic energy it has in a big fraction of the box.