ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Spherical mean

Okay kiddo, have you ever eaten a pizza? Imagine the cheese and toppings are all the way around the pizza, evenly spread out. Now, let's say you want to find out what the average taste of the pizza is, so you take a big bite from the middle. This is kind of like what a spherical mean is.

You see, mathematicians like to study shapes that are round like a ball, and they need to take measurements of things that are all the way around the ball. But, just like with the pizza, they don't always want to look at everything all at once. So, they take small bites out of the ball, all the way around, and add up all the things they find.

Then, they divide that total by the number of bites they took. The result is the spherical mean! It's a way to find out what's happening on the surface of the ball without looking at every tiny detail all at once.

So, just like a pizza, scientists can use the spherical mean to learn about things that are round and full of data - it's a useful tool for understanding the world around us.