ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Obata's theorem

Obata's theorem is a very math-y concept, but I'll try my best to explain it in a simple way!

Imagine you have a piece of paper, and you want to fold it in a certain way so that it creates a triangle. It's like making a hat out of paper, you fold it and then you have a triangle shape.

Now, here comes the cool part - Obata's theorem helps us understand something about this triangle. It tells us that no matter how you fold the paper, the triangle you get will always have angles that add up to 180 degrees.

To understand what that means, let's think about a piece of cake. When you cut a cake into slices, each slice has an angle. But if you add up all the angles of the different slices, what do you get? That's right, 360 degrees!

But with Obata's theorem, even if you start with a square piece of paper and fold it into a triangle shape, the angles inside that triangle will always add up to 180 degrees. It's like magic!

This theorem is important because it helps mathematicians understand different shapes and how they behave. It's like a rule that always applies to triangles, no matter how they are formed.

So next time you fold a piece of paper into a triangle, remember Obata's theorem and know that those angles inside the triangle will always add up to a special number, 180 degrees!