Cobordism ring
Okay kiddo, so imagine you have a bunch of shapes - circles, squares, triangles, and so on. Now, sometimes two of these shapes can kind of fit together nicely, so that they share the same edge or boundary. That's called a "cobordism" between those two shapes.
Now, if we have a lot of shapes, we can start to talk about all the different ways they can fit together like puzzle pieces, and all the cobordisms between them. We can even add numbers to each cobordism to represent weights or multiplicities.
That whole collection of cobordisms form something called the cobordism group, or sometimes the cobordism ring. It's kind of like a math toy box filled with all the ways different shapes can fit together, where each toy has a weight or value based on how it fits together with other toys.
Scientists use cobordism rings to study really complicated shapes, like the ones that make up our universe. It helps them understand how different parts of space can connect or interact with each other in interesting ways. Pretty cool, huh?
Now, if we have a lot of shapes, we can start to talk about all the different ways they can fit together like puzzle pieces, and all the cobordisms between them. We can even add numbers to each cobordism to represent weights or multiplicities.
That whole collection of cobordisms form something called the cobordism group, or sometimes the cobordism ring. It's kind of like a math toy box filled with all the ways different shapes can fit together, where each toy has a weight or value based on how it fits together with other toys.
Scientists use cobordism rings to study really complicated shapes, like the ones that make up our universe. It helps them understand how different parts of space can connect or interact with each other in interesting ways. Pretty cool, huh?