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<p>Of course you can.</p>
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<p>They all learned it on their own - trust me. You don’t need the Cantor set until real analysis (and even then, it’s not really NEEDED until graduate analysis… Rudin introduces it as an example of a perfect set in which there exists no intervals, but this is hardly necessary), and practically no high school in the world teaches this. At a point in your life, no matter who you are (but especially as a physicist), you’re probably going to have to start doing independent research, though. Some people (like the math people here) already know this, but most people matriculating into Chicago have probably yet to learn it.</p>