ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Inversive distance

Imagine you and your friend are playing a game of tag, but instead of just running around, you have to be careful of how far away you are from each other. The inversive distance is like a way to measure how far apart you are, but it's a little bit different than just measuring with a ruler.

So imagine you and your friend are standing on opposite sides of a see-saw. If you move closer to your friend, the see-saw will tip towards them, right? But the inversive distance takes into account how much that see-saw will tip when you move closer or further away from your friend.

Now imagine this see-saw is like a number line. If you and your friend are at 0 and 1, and the inversive distance is 1, that means if you move to 0.5, the see-saw will tip all the way to your friend at 1/2. But if the inversive distance is 2, you could move all the way to 0.25 before the see-saw tips to your friend at 0.75.

So basically, the inversive distance is a way to measure how much the see-saw (or number line) will tip when you move closer or further away from your friend. It's like a fancy measuring stick for playing tag!