When you finally understand something, it just clicks. It fits. You can re-derive it, explain it, use it.
That moment captures the hallmark of what I call common-sense learning: an understanding that fuses new ideas into your existing model of the world until they feel self-evident.
At its core, learning means modifying your mental model of reality, the web of ideas that forms your internal common sense. There are two ways to do this:
The first path is easier and more stable. When you learn, your first move should be to see how the new idea fits. Fitting it is an art: reframe the problem, look at it from different angles until you find a perspective...
Wait, but don't all these experiments have serious confounders? Mild lab induced colds, adults instead of highly infectious children, (importantly) probably poor ventilation, as I didn't see a mention in either the article or the references that they handle that properly. And also, from the article itself, it says that viruses transmitted even when hand-to-face wasn't possible. Also, maybe the framing would have benefited if you made clear that aerosols vs large particles is in fact 'large particles vs small particles'. Plus, aren't there famously viruses ... (read more)