GK> Not neccessarily sloppy. As I said above: Photons having an
 GK> energy of 10000 cm^-1 are correct and understandable in a
 GK> spectroscopic context.

The inverse centimeter is NOT a unit of energy.  It's a unit of something
known as the wave number.  For example, 10 000 cm^-1 means that there are
10 000 waves in a centimeter.  While this number certainly is proportional
to the energy for two waves with the same wave speed, it is not a measure
of the energy.

I know for a fact that researchers who routinely work in units of
wavenumbers THINK of the wavenumber as an indicator of the amount of
energy.  They can get away with that because it works for them in that one
specialized area.  When these researchers publish their work, they do not
use the wavenumber as a measure of energy.

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