Past exam of the physics A course of the University of Cambridge 2019 Paper 1 Section A 1 Solution 2026-10-18
Write and use the Heisenberg uncertainty relation separately in the three Cartesian directions. Since a position coordinate is confined to an interval of length , Popoviciu's inequality on variances gives . Consequently , and the expectation value of the kinetic energy obeysThus an uncertainty-based lower estimate is . This confinement energy bound from position support is not sharp: the exact ground-state energy for a cubical infinite square well is . The Heisenberg uncertainty principle establishes the confinement scale ; identifying a box size with an approximate position standard deviation changes its numerical coefficient.