ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Dermott's law

Okay, let me put this in a way that a five-year-old can understand.

Dermott's Law is a rule that helps us understand how things move around in space. Imagine you're playing soccer with your friends. Usually, when you kick the ball, it goes straight until it hits something like a wall or another player, right?

Now imagine you're playing soccer in space, where there are no walls or players to stop the ball. In space, the ball would keep moving in a straight line forever, right?

Well, that's not entirely true. Dermott's Law tells us that when things move around in space, they also feel the pull of gravity from other objects. So, even if there aren't any walls or players, the soccer ball would eventually start to curve because of the gravity from other things in space, like planets and stars.

Think of it like this: Imagine you're walking down the street, and you see a friend on the other side. You want to walk straight to your friend, but there are other people walking around, and you have to dodge them to keep going in a straight line. You might have to curve around a person or walk in a different direction to avoid bumping into someone.

That's kind of what happens in space. A soccer ball, or any object, might start moving in a straight line, but as it gets close to other objects in space, like a planet or a star, it feels their gravity and starts to curve around them.

So, that's Dermott's Law! It's a way of understanding how objects in space move around and are influenced by gravity from other objects.