ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Incidence (mathematics)

Incidence in mathematics is like when you go out to play and pick up some toys. You have a toy car, a toy truck, and a ball. You put them on the grass and notice that the toy car is touching the toy truck, but the ball is not touching any of the other toys. This means the incidence of the toy car and the toy truck is 1, but the incidence of the ball is 0.

In mathematics, we use incidence to describe how things relate to each other. It's like how your toys relate to each other on the grass – they can either touch or not touch each other. When we talk about geometry, we use incidence to describe how points, lines, and shapes can be connected or not connected.

For example, if we have a line and a point, we can say there is an incidence between them if they are connected – like if the point is on the line. Similarly, we can say there is no incidence if the point is not on the line.

Overall, incidence in mathematics is just a way to describe how things relate to each other, like your toys on the grass.