Quantum Physics 1

When I was about twelve, I used to play a game every once and a while to keep me from getting bored--and I have always been very easily bored. I would pretend as if I suddenly developed complete amnesia and had to figure out where I was. Another question I used to ask myself is how much of human knowledge I could recreate if everyone else on the planet suddenly disappeared or if I were stuck on a deserted island. Not much, I always concluded.

So what if I were the last person alive on earth? I'm sure my first order of business would be figuring out food, crops, etc. I'd want to figure out medical type things and be ready for any kind of sickness. Assuming that nothing electrical worked, maybe I would spend some time trying to fix some things along those lines. Sure, I might travel too. I could live in a different ghost city every week if I wanted to.

But eventually, if I had access to all the books humanity had left behind, I would probably start to study things. Let's say one year or two I decide that I want finally to spend the time to learn quantum physics. I'd always wanted to, but didn't have the time. Of course I'd have to review a bunch of physics I hadn't thought about since high school and college, and that was now decades ago.

Where would I start?

Quantum Physics 2: Planck 1

All the introductions to quantum mechanics very quickly mention Max Planck. What do I remember of Planck from high school, college, somewhere? Didn't he suggest that maybe on the atomic level energy jumps from one intensity to another without going through all the levels in between? And I remember a formula, E=hv, where h is Planck's constant. Well, that doesn't take me very far. Better look in the library.

OK, here's a little book by John Polkinghorne published by Oxford in 2002: Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction. He starts a little further back than others. In the 1800's, people are thinking that light is a wave, like the sea. Isaac Newton back in the 1600s had thought light might be particles. He mentions James Clerk Maxwell as setting down the basic equations of electromagnetic theory, puts him in the same category as Newton, considers his equations the greatest discoveries of 1800s physics. They point to light being a wave.

Do I get distracted here? Do I now look for a college physics book to relearn the basics of electromagnetic theory? No one else is alive. I've got a lot of time on my hands. I'm probably going to have to go back to learn it at some point in this quest anyway. May as well.