Varifold

Okay kiddo, have you ever played with a piece of paper and tried to fold it in different ways to make different shapes? Varifolds are kind of like that, but with really complicated and wiggly shapes.

Imagine that you have a big piece of rubber that you can bend and stretch in any way you want, without tearing it. Then, you draw a shape on it - maybe a squiggly line or a bumpy shape - and you fold the rubber along that shape. This is kind of like making a three-dimensional version of a drawing.

Scientists use varifolds to describe really complicated shapes that you can't easily describe in any other way. They can use varifolds to study things like how blood vessels branch out in the brain and how clouds form in the sky. It's like they're making a squishy model of something complicated so they can study it really closely.