ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Carminati-McLenaghan invariants

Okay, so imagine you have a toy car that you play with. Now, imagine you have another toy car that is the same, but it's turned a little bit. Even though they look a little different, they are still the same car underneath.

Scientists use something called the Carminati-McLenaghan invariants to help them study things that look a little different but are actually the same underneath. They use this tool to measure how much two things are similar, even if they look a little different.

It's like if you have two pictures – one is the original and the other one is a copy, but it's a little blurry. If you use the Carminati-McLenaghan invariants, you can figure out how much the blurry picture is like the original one.

Scientists use this for things like studying the shapes of objects in space or understanding complicated chemical reactions. It helps them see the similarities even when things look a little different.