>>11106254I don't know where you are in your career, but I'm going to assume you're not a grad student (or have a PhD). I say this because, once you enter a PhD program, you realize how silly questions like yours are. Do you need to learn the material to progress in your research? Are you simply interested in the topic? (Note that these two questions are deeply overlapping.) Then you learn it. Don't have the background? Then you learn that first. There's no two ways about it.
How long will it take? It depends on your background, obviously. But who cares? You go and learn it.
