Get your head around

Use the phrase, “get your head around (something)” when you’re talking about understanding a concept that’s difficult to understand. For example, the “Big Bang” is not the beginning of time and space. Some astronomers think that the universe had no beginning.

For humans, it’s easy to get our heads around the idea of the universe having no end. But it’s hard to get our heads around the idea that the universe might not have a beginning. That’s a tricky concept for us to mentally understand, since it contradicts everything that we as humans have experienced.

In today’s lesson, you learned that a small amount of activated charcoal has the surface area of an entire football field. That might be hard to get your head around: just a few grams of a substance can have the surface area of a whole football field? But it’s true because charcoal is very porous: it has lots and lots of tiny little holes.

You’ll want to use “get your head around” when you’re talking about an idea that’s hard to comprehend. Don’t use this when you simply don’t understand something.