ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Affine involution

Imagine you have a toy car and you want to make it look like a mirror image of itself. Now, you don't want to change the size or shape of the car, just make it look like it is being reflected on a mirror. This is exactly what an affine involution does in math.

An affine involution is like taking a shape or object and flipping it over like a mirror image under a certain set of rules. These rules make sure that the size, shape, and angles of the object stay the same, just like our toy car.

For example, imagine a square on a piece of graph paper. An affine involution of this square would be to take each point on the square and flip it over a certain line of symmetry, like a mirror. However, the distance between each point is still the same, and the angles between the lines connecting the points are still the same.

This kind of transformation is important in many areas of math, especially geometry and linear algebra. By using affine involution, we can more easily study and understand the relationships between different shapes and figures in space.