ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Stratifold

Hey there! So, have you ever played with a deck of cards before? You know how when you shuffle them, all the cards get mixed up and it can be hard to find the card you want?

Well, imagine if you had to keep track of thousands or even millions of cards. That's what scientists and engineers often have to do when they are studying or designing complex systems, like the human body or a spacecraft.

That's where stratifolds come in. A stratifold is like a special type of map that helps scientists and engineers keep track of all the different parts and components of a complex system.

Imagine you have a bunch of different colors of Legos. You could just dump them all in a pile and try to sort through them to find the ones you need, but that would take a long time and be really confusing. Instead, you could sort them by color and stack them in neat piles. That way, you could easily find the yellow Legos when you need them, for example.

A stratifold is kind of like that - it helps scientists and engineers organize all the different parts of a complex system so they can find and study them more easily. Instead of sorting by color, though, they sort by different characteristics or properties.

So, for example, if a scientist is studying the cells in the human body, they might use a stratifold to sort the cells based on where they are located in the body, what type of cell they are (like a muscle cell or a skin cell), and what their function is. It's like making a big chart that shows all the different parts of the body and how they fit together.

Overall, stratifolds are a really helpful tool for understanding complex systems and making them easier to study and design.