Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
I think you have a good enough picture of my ignorance level wrt QM, what resources would you direct me to learn more at this point? Keeping in mind that the source needs to be dumbed down to a certain degree.
I keep thinking about this one. It's tough. I recognize that suggesting you teach yourself some math - enough mathematics to earn yourself at least 3/4 of a math degree - is probably folly on my part. I can't reasonably expect anyone to do math homework because I suggest it.
Besides, struggling for the non-mathematical answers is part of the fun for me, too.

I think we've taken a quick look at the earliest motivations for QM... specifically blackbody radiation and now the photoelectric effect.
Once we've explored your questions about the photoelectric effect, then we're ready to talk about the nuclear atom.

So, if you don't mind... tell me about the photoelectric effect and we'll talk about that for a minute and then move on.

Here's what to look forward to in our coming discussions:
The next step is to understand how physics describes the Hydrogen atom. I want to talk about where the model (Schroedinger's Equation) came from and the successes and limitations of the model. This is going to introduce us to the wave equation that describes quantum probabilities.

It will be difficult to understand it without a strong understanding of waves and how they propagate. We will also need to know about potential energy functions and the conservation of energy.

Ultimately, we can look at a classical picture of a simple harmonic oscillator for a lot of the background in one place. A simple harmonic oscillator is something like a mass on a spring, or a pendulum. If we ignore friction in our descriptions of these things, we see quite similar mathematics as we will see in the working out of our examples of the Schroedinger Equation.