## Our Solar System

My five-year-old daughter is such a science nerd — I wonder where she gets it. She surprised me with a drawing she made for me, along with her ability to describe it with such fascination and detail. She informed me that she didn’t color the planets correctly but, and to paraphrase, she wanted to express some artistic freedom. I begrudgingly informed her that pluto is no longer considered a planet. I’m particularly happy that she managed to correctly draw rings on the four outer planets, though I couldn’t figure out if she did that because she knew that they all have rings. I mostly blame Bill Nye and the makers of the Magic School Bus for her knowing so much about space (maybe I’m a little to blame too). I only hope her passion for space and science continues. I’m so proud of my little girl.

## Gamma

While I was watching a video from one of my favorite YouTube channels, I decided I wanted to try the math(s) that Professor Merrifield was describing to explain Gamma / the Lorentz factor. I’m very excited that my new blog supports $\LaTeX$ and MathJax so the formulas actually turn out looking the way they should.

While this math might look difficult at first, it is really easy. It is essentially just using the Pythagorean theorem to isolate the relationship between $t$ and $\tau$, which is the factor by which time (and length, and mass) changes for a moving object.