WebmasterWorld has a nice round-up on PageRank – aimed at web marketeers at beginner's level …

covering:

Google's take on PR

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important.

• How can I check my PR?
• How does page rank affect your listing in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages)?
• What detrimental effects will I face for buying PR?
• I'd still like to improve the Page Rank of my site?
• What links do I need to get to take my homepage to PR6
• I've added a lot of IBLs but I don't see my PR changing/my PR has dropped
• How often does the PR change?
• Will they inform me when they revise PR?
• Help, I've lost all PR!
• Why is my PR more in the Google directory than it is on the toolbar?
• It was easy to get from a PR4 to a PR5 but it's taking much longer to get to a PR6, why's that?
• How can I retain PR on my site and prevent it from going to other sites?
• If PR is virtually useless from the point of view of Google traffic then why did you ramble on for so long and cover all those point?
• So if PR doesn't determine how I rank then what does?

Of course many of the concepts and ideas follow the common believes in Page Rank … when reading such round-ups always keep in mind that it's unofficial information and observations – and not confirmed by Google… altough pretty common understanding, I am sure there are some mis-perceptions or some crucial details missing (as with all theories)

Google PR Basics