ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Hyperbolic function

Hey there kiddo! Have you ever played with a slinky before? You know how when you stretch it out a bit, it starts to curve up and down like a wave? Well, a hyperbolic function is a bit like that!

It's a kind of math function that can create shapes that look like waves, but they're not smooth like regular waves. Instead, they have a kind of sharpness to them, like the edges of a saw blade. This might sound weird, but it can be really useful for all kinds of things!

Hyperbolic functions come in different varieties, but they all work in similar ways. Imagine you have a number line that goes from negative infinity to positive infinity (that's a really BIG number line!). If you pick a number on that line, say 2, you can plug it into a hyperbolic function and get a new number.

The funny thing about hyperbolic functions is that they can give you very big numbers or very small numbers, depending on the input. Sometimes they might even give you a result that's "undefined" (which means it doesn't make sense).

Hyperbolic functions are used in lots of different fields, from engineering to physics to computer science. They can help people understand things like how waves move through space and time, or how to simulate complex systems in a computer.

So even though they might seem a bit strange at first, hyperbolic functions are actually a really important part of math and science!