Chapter 1: Introducing Quantum Concepts

"There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago."

– Robert J. Oppenheimer

Figure 1.1 – Girl looking at the image of an atom [Adapted from image licensed by Getty]

Predicting the behavior of matter, materials, and substances not yet measured experimentally is an exciting prospect. Modern computational tools enable you to conduct virtual experiments on freely available resources. Understanding modern models of how chemistry works is essential if you want to get results that match the way Nature operates.

Classical physics works fine for predicting the trajectory of a ball with Newton's law of gravitation or the trajectory of planets around the sun. However, a more accurate description of Nature, especially chemistry, can be found via quantum physics, which encapsulates...