ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

F. Riesz's theorem

Okay sweetie, let me explain F. Riesz's theorem to you in a way that you will understand it even better than some grown-ups!

So, imagine that you have a big basket of apples. Some apples are very big and some are very small. But you want to find out which apple is the biggest of them all. F. Riesz's theorem helps you with that.

This theorem says that if you have something called a linear function that measures the size of the apples, then the biggest apple will be the one that has the highest value when you use this function on it.

Now, let's say that you want to measure the size of each apple by their weight. So, you have a weighing scale and you put each apple on it to weigh it. The weight of each apple is the value that you get when you use the linear function of weight to measure its size.

Using F. Riesz's theorem, you can find out which apple is the heaviest. It will be the one that has the highest weight value when you weigh each apple on the scale.

In math, F. Riesz's theorem deals with something called a vector space. This is a place where you can find lots of things that can be measured using a linear function. Just like how all the apples in your basket have a size that can be measured using the weight function.

So, in conclusion, F. Riesz's theorem helps you find the biggest thing in a vector space by using a linear function to measure their size. Just like how you can find the heaviest apple by using a weighing scale to measure their weight. Cool, right?