ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Confluent hypergeometric series

Okay kiddo, have you ever counted blocks before? Imagine you have a pile of blocks and you want to know how many there are. You could count them one by one, or you could use a shortcut if they are arranged in a special way.

Similarly, mathematicians use something called a 'confluent hypergeometric series' to describe certain mathematical functions that show up in physics, engineering, and other fields.

But why do we need a special name for these functions? Well, they're special because they have a shortcut formula that helps us calculate them more easily than counting them one by one.

Here's an example: imagine you have a cake and you want to cut it into pieces. You could count how many pieces you have after each cut, or you could use a formula called a 'confluent hypergeometric series' to figure out the total number of pieces after a certain number of cuts.

Okay, that might have been a bit complicated, let's simplify it further. Like blocks or cake, mathematicians use this formula to count things, but it makes it a lot easier and faster to do so.