Re: QM is hard!
"electrons oscillated by jumping between energy levels
Not exactly. Electrons are not thought of as oscillating in any sense when they are bound to atoms. Indeed, it was the very idea that they were oscillating that caused so much trouble back in the 1900's, since by Maxwell's equations they should radiate constantly while "orbiting" the nucleus."
They kind of are when they transition between levels in, say, a laser; absorb photon, go up a state, release photon, go down one, oscillation between levels. Though in context it's wrong, since it suggests that's the oscillation rate between states being measured, while presumably it's actually the photon frequency.
Getting your mind around what the Bloch equations mean for individual atoms is tricky, I eventually settled on photons acting like spanners cranking the state. Which is almost certainly terribly misleading, but does allow visualising them being wielded by tiny quantum mechanics.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
