ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Representation theory of the diffeomorphism group

Representation theory of the diffeomorphism group is about understanding how the way things move (like your body, or things in space) can be described and studied. Imagine you are playing with blocks, and you can move them around however you want - this is like the diffeomorphism group. People who study this want to understand how the diffeomorphism group can be described mathematically using something called representations.

Now, let's say you want to understand how blocks move around in a specific way, maybe you want to understand how they rotate. This is like studying a particular type of representation. By studying these specific ways of moving things, scientists and mathematicians can learn more about how the diffeomorphism group works and what it tells us about the universe around us.

Overall, representation theory of the diffeomorphism group is a way of understanding how things move around in space, and how we can describe that movement in a mathematical way to learn more about how the world works.