ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Kazhdan–Lusztig conjectures

Have you ever played with puzzles that are really hard and take a long time to solve? Mathematicians also have puzzles they like to solve, but they are much harder than regular puzzles.

One really big puzzle that mathematicians have been trying to solve for a long time is called the Kazhdan-Lusztig conjectures. It's like a big puzzle with a lot of little puzzles inside it.

So, what exactly are these puzzles about? They are about something called "representation theory," which is a fancy way of saying that mathematicians want to study how numbers and shapes relate to each other.

In particular, the Kazhdan-Lusztig conjectures are about studying something called "Lie groups," which are like big families of shapes that can be transformed in different ways. Think of it like playing with Legos, but instead of building simple structures, you are building complicated shapes that can twist and turn in all kinds of directions.

The Kazhdan-Lusztig conjectures are trying to figure out how different parts of Lie groups fit together, kind of like trying to figure out how different pieces of a puzzle fit together. But it's a really hard puzzle because there are so many different pieces to keep track of.

Once mathematicians figure out the solution to this puzzle, it can help us understand many other things in mathematics and science, just like how solving a regular puzzle can teach us new things too.