Moore space (algebraic topology)

Okay, imagine you're a little kid and you're playing with some toys in your room. You have a big blanket on the floor and you’re trying to figure out how to cover all the spaces under and around the toys with it. You want to make sure that every part of the floor is covered by the blanket.

In algebraic topology, mathematicians play a similar game with shapes and spaces. Instead of a blanket, they use something called a "Moore space" to cover the different parts of the space. A Moore space is a particular kind of space that is useful for finding out information about other, more complicated spaces.

Here's how it works: Imagine you have a really complicated shape or space, like a donut or a balloon animal. You want to understand what it looks like and how all its parts fit together. To do that, you can break it down into simpler parts, like circles or lines.

Now imagine you are trying to cover each of these simpler parts with your blanket, the Moore space. The trick is finding the right way to cover each part using the Moore space. You want to make sure that every point on each of the simple parts is covered by the Moore space, and that the blanket doesn't overlap or leave gaps anywhere.

By carefully covering each of the simple parts with the Moore space, mathematicians can learn a lot about the more complicated shape or space they started with. They can count how many holes or loops it has, or figure out how it can be turned around without changing its shape.

So, a Moore space is like a special blanket that covers all the parts of a space, and helps mathematicians understand how the space is put together.