ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Dupin cyclide

Alright kiddo, let me explain the Dupin Cyclide in a way that even you can understand.

Imagine you have a ball (let's call it a sphere) that is made of a stretchy material. You can pull on this ball to make it into different shapes, but it will always stay one piece - it won't break.

Now imagine you take two other balls just like the first one, and you stick them together at one point so they are touching. You can stretch and pull on these balls too, but now you have to keep all three balls connected - you can't let them break apart.

If you keep playing with these three balls, something really interesting happens. You might notice that the shape they make starts to look like a donut or a tire. This shape is called a Dupin Cyclide!

The Dupin Cyclide is special because it has a really interesting property - it's what is called a constant mean curvature surface. This means that no matter where you measure the curvature of the surface, it will always be the same. It's like the surface of the Dupin Cyclide is perfectly smooth and evenly curved all over.

Scientists and mathematicians really like the Dupin Cyclide because it is such a unique shape, and it can be used to model things like gears or other moving parts in machinery. Plus, it's just plain cool to look at!

So there you have it, kid - the Dupin Cyclide is a fancy shape that you can make by sticking three stretchy balls together and pulling on them, and it's really interesting and useful to smart people.