I tried reading the modern quantum mechanics book, but it seems very difficult off the bat. Seems like there is a lot they expect you to have a very heavy physics background already. I have a major in mechanical engineering and a minor in math so I figured I had enough to work my way through it, but I don't know any more. Anyone have a recommendation for a book that can ease me into it a little better?
I've read Griffiths, most of Shankar, some of Sakurai, and some of Feynman.
Of those, I would say Griffiths is the best option for someone with your background. It's short enough that you have some hope of going through the entire book, and it has you doing real calculations. The writing is good.
Shankar has lots of good stuff, but its 600+ pages long, so a bit overwhelming. I also found the explanations not as clear as in Griffiths.
The perspective in Feynman and Sakurai is quite different than in Griffiths, and it is possibly a better approach. But Sakurai is much more challenging than Griffiths and not nearly as well written. Feynman lacks the worked examples and exercises that Griffiths has, so is not (IMO) appropriate as your sole textbook, but definitely worth looking at for the different perspective. A text taking the Feynman (or Sakurai) approach, but at the length and level of Griffiths, would be valuable.
(I taught myself basic QM prior to going to grad school in physics, with a background similar to your, so I have some direct experience here. This was about 12 years ago. Perhaps there are better options now.)
Hmm... both Messiah and Sakurai are usually at the graduate level. If you're fairly strong in math I'd recommend Messiah, but I can't recall off the top of my head whether there is a good chunk of physical knowledge expected. IIRC, it's a more axiomatic approach than most QM textbooks, so I'd pick this up (I believe Dover has a cheap version, but it's also available on PDF in most places).
The usual undergraduate textbook that people recommend is Griffiths, though I definitely disagree with its usefulness (the book often opts for doing a bunch of calculations to 'get the intuition,' as opposed to explaining some points clearly, which is fine but I dislike this approach).
If you're up for a fantastic, but quite dense, reading, Bohm's Quantum Theory holds a special place in my heart for its brilliant motivation and fairly clear exposition of foundational QM (note that it doesn't concern itself with the notion of Bohmian mechanics at all). This book sits on my bookshelf with hundreds of notes all over its pages. Of course, there is a good chunk of physics expected to be able to read this book, but you should skim it and skip to the chapters of interest as a good reference !
My program required a course in QM and recommended a second.
I will say I found Griffiths incredibly difficult (it was the official text for the first course). Admittedly this is in part because my maths background was not as strong as it should have been (the quality of my school's advising was poor, and indicated that I didn't need linear algebra - among other faults). I found myself regularly consulting Eisberg and Resnick's Quantum Physics which had a nice logical structure and fully worked paradigm cases. I thought Zettili was an excellent reference as well.
I'd like to revisit all this at some point. If anyone has a link to a recommended course of study for refreshing physics majors, I'd love to have a look.
Not sure if this one is going to be any easier, but I've been slowly going through Max Born's Atomic Physics after I picked up it used for really cheap. I like the way he goes through each step historically and presents quantum mechanics as a progression of discoveries based on what people were thinking at the time, which for me made it easier to reason about.
