ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Evolute

Okay kiddo, do you know what an evolute is? It's kind of like tracing the path of a car as it turns around a corner. When the car goes around the corner, its path is curved, and the evolute is the shape of that curve if you were to trace it with your finger.

Let's imagine you draw a circle on a piece of paper. If you were to trace the edge of the circle with your finger, you would get the circle's evolute, which would be a straight line.

But, if you were to draw a squiggly shape instead, like a wavy line, the evolute of that shape would be a different kind of curve that follows the path of the corners and turns in the wavy line.

The idea of an evolute can be used in lots of different fields, like math, science, and engineering, to help people better understand the curves and shapes that are all around us.

So, an evolute is basically just the path traced by a point on a curve as it moves or turns. It's like following a car around a bend and drawing the curve that its wheels make as they move along the road.