ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Free entropy

Okay kiddo, so imagine you have a bunch of toys in a box. You can play with any toy you want whenever you want, and you can also put them away whenever you want. That's called having free choice, right?

Now, imagine those toys are like tiny bits of information, and the box is like a computer. But instead of toys, these bits of information are called entropy. Entropy is a measure of how much randomness there is in something. For example, a jigsaw puzzle with all of its pieces mixed up has high entropy, because it's very disordered and random. But if you put all the pieces together, it has low entropy because it's organized and not random.

So, free entropy means having the ability to choose the level of randomness in something, just like how you can choose which toy to play with from a box. In computers, free entropy is important for generating random numbers, which is useful for things like encryption and security.

Overall, free entropy means having the freedom to choose how much randomness you want to use in something. It's like a toy box full of options!