For those of us who are somewhat knowledgeable, but not hackers, can you give us a real world made-up example so it can more easily be grasped?
Suppose the hash was equal to the sum of the bytes in a given password.
If my password was 1111111111 my hash would be 10.
Anyone who puts in 1111111111 would get 10.
So would anyone who put in 22222, or 55, or 19 or 244, or 82, or 28 or...
One of the better explanations on hashes can be found here:
http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/iguide-crypto-hashes.html