ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Topological property

A topological property is like a special way of describing how things are connected or arranged. Imagine you have a toy that is a big, squishy ball. You can bend and stretch the ball, but no matter how you change its shape, it will still be just one big ball, right? That's because the ball has a topological property called "connectedness," which means that all parts of the ball are still connected to each other, no matter how you move or change it.

Another example of a topological property is "holes." If you have a donut, you can see that it has a hole in the middle, right? And if you have a piece of paper, it doesn't have a hole. This is because the donut and the paper have different topological properties - the donut has a "hole," but the paper does not.

Topological properties are important in lots of different fields, like geometry, physics, and computer science. They help us understand how things fit together, and how we can change them without losing important connections or structures.