ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Affine hull

Okay kiddo, imagine you have a lot of toy cars of different sizes and colors. Affine hull is like a special way of figuring out the biggest place where you can move all your toy cars around and still keep them in the same shape and size.

Now let me explain a bit more. The affine hull is a way to describe a particular kind of shape. We use it in math, especially in geometry. The affine hull is like a "container" or "envelope" around a group of things that are all similar in some way. In our example, the "things" are the toy cars.

When we talk about the affine hull of the toy cars, we mean the biggest "container" or "envelope" that we can put around all the cars while still keeping their shape and size the same. That means we can move them around, turn them over, and even stretch them a little bit, but they will still always fit inside this "container."

The affine hull is also useful for describing other shapes in the world, like clouds or mountains. Just like with the toy cars, we can describe the biggest space around these shapes where they still keep their basic structure. That's why the affine hull is an important tool for mathematicians and scientists who want to understand and describe things in the world around us.