I was given a problem today:
I was to imagine a two-state, two-level system. To each state there corresponds exactly one level (or configuration), and so it is non-degenerate. The energy of state 1 is E1=100cm-1 and of state 2 is E2=200cm-1. What is the probability to be in state 1 at temperature 300K ?
I managed to get a formula algebraically and every thing if fine except when i input the values for e^-(1/KbT)E I get an extremely large number. I was trying to work around this for a while now without a solution.
I did the following for example:
e^-(1/(1.38x10-²³(meters² x kilograms) / (seconds² x Kelvin))(800kelvin))300cm-¹
Is this wrong? assuming -B = 1/KbT in discreet degenerate energy system.
The formula i found to use in the end is:
e^(-(1/1.38x10-²³ x temperature))E1 / e^(-(1/1.38x10-²³ x temperature))E1 + 2e^(-(1/1.38x10-²³ x temperature))E2