ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Spherical variety

Do you like playing with balls? Spherical variety is a bit like that! It's a special type of geometric shape that mathematicians study.

Imagine holding a beach ball in your hands. You can see that it's round and has different colors on it. A spherical variety is like a beach ball, but with more dimensions.

In math, we talk about things having different "dimensions" or "sizes". For example, a line is one-dimensional because it only has length, while a square is two-dimensional because it has length and width. A sphere (like a beach ball) is three-dimensional because it has length, width, and height.

A spherical variety is also three-dimensional, but it has some special characteristics. It's made up of lots of smaller pieces, kind of like how your beach ball has small patches of different colors. These smaller pieces are called "orbits".

One interesting thing about spherical varieties is that they have a special type of symmetry. This means that if you rotate the shape, it will still look the same. Think of it like spinning a top - it still looks the same even though it's turned around.

Overall, a spherical variety is like a fascinating geometric toy for mathematicians to play with!