ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Schur–Horn theorem

Okay, imagine you have a big circle filled with different colors of gumdrops. Now, let's say you want to pick a line that cuts through the circle and splits the gumdrops into two halves.

The Schur-Horn theorem is all about figuring out which halves of the gumdrops you can get by picking different lines. It turns out that if you start with a certain set of gumdrops with a certain arrangement of colors, there are only certain ways you can split them up by picking lines.

Think of it like this: If you have a bunch of different colored gumdrops in your circle and you want to split them up in a certain way, the only lines you can use to split them up are like puzzle pieces that fit together just right. You can't just draw any old line and hope it'll work.

The Schur-Horn theorem helps mathematicians figure out which lines they need to pick to get the halves of gumdrops that they want. It's like a secret code for how to split up gumdrops (or any other things that can be represented by numbers, actually). And once you know the code, you can figure out how to divide up all sorts of other things, too!