I'm not sure if I have anything useful to contribute here. OP writes that s/he enjoys learning physics and is trying to learn "something like" gauge theory. At age 12, that is enormously impressive. Unfortunately, we have only two data points as far as determining where OP is in learning both the physics and the maths on the path(s) to having the requisite skills to enable understanding of the desired subject. Point 1 is OP's age, point two is the material OP sites as being subject of interest. The gap between those is enormous. The problem is that unless we know what you have already learned (that a 'typical' 12 or 13 year old hasn't) we can't tell you what (else) you need - we can't tell you how to get there without knowing where you are.The other problem, which I've not noticed anyone else addressing, is that without a lot of practice and application of any subject, the learning will be superficial. Like "learning" that Henry 8 had 6 wives, and executed 2 of them without understanding why (really) he had them executed while not executing the others - the politics, the economics, the law, the Church, his faith all contributed significantly to why...So, I diverge from the crowd in forking the discussion into two threads: superficial facility and deep, intuitive learning. (of course, this is a simplification!). For deep learning, you need to spend hours and hours practicing the stuff you've learned. This is simply how the brain needs to be wired. So, even if you're genius level, you'll need to exert a stupendous effort to acquire and practice the various things you'll need. OTOH, learning to become fluent in the language is much easier. I strongly recommend Susskind's (Stanford) video lectures on physics. They are very math lite. But they do have maths that you have probably not learned. I'd suggest you follow them in their logical order and perhaps buy the book (or books?) he co-wrote as supplements and when you encounter a concept you don't understand, dig into other resources to get enough background. You'll see that math is the LANGUAGE you must use to understand physics. And just as someone fluent in a language THINKS in that language (rather than their 'native' one), you'll see that thinking in math is required to fully grasp what he's doing on his whiteboard. Its been a few years since I watched his courses (they're free on-line) but iirc he assumes students have some knowledge of vectors, matrices, and calculus - both differential and integral, perhaps with a bit of trigonometry and series as well. A LOT of what he does is based on the infinitesimal, taking the limit, which is the basis of calculus (among other things). You'll also need to be familiar with the idea that space is a concept that can be generalized to be any number of dimensions (into vectors of any rank, in other words). But this is gently shown to you in his first course on classical dynamics (Mechanics). Ahhh, this post is long enough and I've just started. What isn't mentioned and rarely explicitly taught is that much of what you'll need to learn involves the abstraction of concepts and formal (logical-mathematical) systems. Physics uses both heavily, and little of either has been used by the time a student has finished 7th or 8th grade. Also, just as symmetry is a feature of the natural world, mathematics uses symmetry a lot, but Physics even more. Without the mathematics of symmetry, group theory, gauge theory, is meaningless. I just reread my post, and I'd quibble with myself - I shouldn't have used the word "fluent", you can't become fluent imho without extensive practice, but you might become 'adequate' enough to vaguely understand with just a little...which is probably the best you should hope for without mastering (practicing) the multitude of concepts.