ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Faltings' annihilator theorem

Okay kiddo, let's talk about Faltings' Annihilator Theorem.

Do you know what an equation is? It's when you have two things that are equal, like 2+2=4.

Well, sometimes we have equations with variables in them, like x+y=4. We might have lots of equations with lots of variables, and we want to solve them all at the same time. That's called a system of equations.

Now, Faltings' Annihilator Theorem helps us solve certain types of systems of equations. Specifically, these systems involve something called algebraic numbers.

Algebraic numbers are numbers that are solutions to equations with integer coefficients, like x^2-2=0 (which gives us the square root of 2).

The cool thing about algebraic numbers is that we can use them to describe lots of things in math, like geometry and number theory. But sometimes we need to solve systems of equations with algebraic numbers, and that can be tricky.

That's where Faltings' Annihilator Theorem comes in. It tells us that if we have a system of equations with algebraic numbers in it, we can find another equation (called an annihilator) that all the solutions to our system satisfy.

This is really helpful because it means we don't have to solve the whole system to find out things about the solutions. We just need to find the annihilator.

Now, I don't want to get too technical, but one way we find the annihilator is by using something called Galois theory. This theory tells us how to work with equations and their solutions in a really powerful way.

So, in summary, Faltings' Annihilator Theorem helps us solve systems of equations with algebraic numbers by finding an equation (the annihilator) that all the solutions satisfy. And we can find that equation using Galois theory. Pretty cool, huh?