ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Linearly ordered group

Okay kiddo, have you ever played with toys like building blocks or Legos? And have you ever arranged them in a certain order from smallest to biggest, or from left to right in a line? That's kind of what a linearly ordered group is, but with math!

So first, a group is a bunch of numbers that you can do math with, like adding or multiplying them together. And when we say a group is linearly ordered, it means that we can put those numbers in a line from left to right, or from smallest to biggest, just like we did with building blocks.

But there's a special rule to follow when it comes to a linearly ordered group. We can't just put the numbers in any old order, we have to make sure that they follow a certain pattern. For example, if we have the numbers 1, 2, and 3, we know that 1 comes before 2, and 2 comes before 3. We can't suddenly decide that 2 comes before 1, or that 3 comes before 2.

This pattern is important because it helps us do math with the numbers in the group. We can use the order to figure out which numbers are bigger or smaller, and how they relate to each other.

So basically, a linearly ordered group is just a bunch of numbers that we can arrange in a line according to a certain pattern, and that pattern helps us do math with the numbers in the group. Cool, huh?
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