ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff equation

Ok kiddo, so the tolman-oppenheimer-volkoff equation is actually about stars!

You know how stars shine really bright in the night sky? Well, they do that because deep inside them there's a process called nuclear fusion, which creates a lot of heat and light.

But stars are really big and heavy, so gravity is really strong and tries to pull everything together towards the center. This means that the pressure and temperature at the center of a star are much higher than on the surface.

The tolman-oppenheimer-volkoff equation is a way for scientists to figure out how much pressure there is inside a star, which helps them understand how it will behave over time. It takes into account things like the star's mass, density, and radius.

Basically, the equation says that there's a limit to how heavy a star can be before it collapses under its own weight and turns into a black hole. This is because there's a maximum amount of pressure that the star's atoms can withstand before they break down.

So when scientists use the tolman-oppenheimer-volkoff equation, they can predict what will happen to a star as it gets older and changes over time. It helps them learn more about how the universe works and how stars are born, live, and eventually die.