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I'm following along with the first HW assignment from MIT's open course ware for course 8.04 - quantum mechanics.

Here's a link to the HW assignment: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-04-quantum-physics-i-spring-2013/assignments/MIT8_04S13_ps1.pdf

Here's a link to the solutions: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-04-quantum-physics-i-spring-2013/assignments/MIT8_04S13_ps1_sol.pdf

I don't understand what they mean by "appropriate values" in the solution for problem 2(a)ii. What did they set the RHS of equation 11 to in order to come up with an answer??

I think it stems from not understanding what they mean by a "characteristic x" in this problem. For characteristic energy, they kind of give it away in the problem statement, but in general I don't know what that term means.

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  • $\begingroup$ The RHS is exactly the same as in equation 11. It's only the LHS that changes. $\endgroup$
    – pfnuesel
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 7:14
  • $\begingroup$ As soon as I posted the question, I saw what was going on. It is indeed trivial, but I'll answer the post just in case others are confused. $\endgroup$
    – gzak
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 7:16

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As @pfnuesel says, instead of setting the LHS as kg1 m2 s-2 for energy, just set it to the unit appropriate for that property, so for characteristic time it would just be s1 and for characteristic velocity it would just be m1 s-1.

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