ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Root of unity

Imagine you have some toys that you really love playing with, and you learn a new game where you need to put all your toys in a circle. But, your mom tells you that you can only put certain toys in the circle, and only in certain places. These toys are called "root of unity".

Now, what is a "root of unity"? Well, math is kinda like a game with some special rules, and in this game, roots of unity are just special numbers that you can use to make a special pattern when you put them in a circle.

Let's imagine that you have 4 toys and you put them in a circle. You realize that if you want to make a perfect pattern, you need to put each toy in a specific place - let's say, up, down, left, and right. Those toys become roots of unity, and 4 is a special number for making a circle pattern.

Similarly, if you have 6 toys, you can only make the perfect pattern by putting them in certain places: top, bottom, left, right, and two places in between. These places are also roots of unity, and 6 is a special number for making a circle pattern.

In math, we talk about things like "complex numbers" which can be thought of as numbers with two parts: a real part and an imaginary part (kind of like having a toy with two colors or two shapes). These complex numbers can be used to form a pattern, just like the toys in a circle. When the pattern is perfect, we say that we've found a "root of unity".

So, a root of unity is just a special number that you can use to make a special pattern when you put it in a circle. And, just like your toys, you can only put certain numbers in certain places to make the perfect pattern. It's a fun game to play when you're learning math!