in which the somewhat positive hydrogen atoms form a cage around the electron. The spectrum corresponding
to the solvated electron in liquid ammonia exhibits a maximum at approximately 1500 nm.
Although this hardly represents a particle in a box, if we assume that it does and if we assume that the
band maximum represents the transition of the electron between the states n 1 and n 2, we can
solve for the dimension of the box. In this case, the energy corresponds to a box having a length of
about 120 km, although other estimates range from 300 to 600 pm. This is not a precise calculation,
but the calculated length of the cavity is at least compatible with the electron residing in a small cavity
of molecular dimensions and the fact that the density of a solution of this type is lower than that of
the pure solvent.