# This is why it's so hard to get things done ... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 16, 2011, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-its-so-hard-to-get-things-done/589235 "2011-07-16T12:25:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2011, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-its-so-hard-to-get-things-done/589235/1 "2011-07-16T12:25:50Z")
I started out wondering about the etymology of the word, “sublime.” (it’s one of those words I look up every few years, then forget again.) So I looked it up on [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com). Once there, I wondered how it could be from a root meaning “to raise” if the word “sublimate” means kind of the opposite. So I had to look it up too. On that page, I noticed that there was a lesser definition denoting a process in chemistry. Off the top of my head, I couldn’t think of what substance or element could go from solid to vapor and back to solid without passing through a liquid state; so I went to wikipedia and looked up the process. At the bottom of the page was “phase diagram” listed under, “See Also.” I wasn’t clear what the connection was, so I clicked the hyperlink. From there I went to “phase space,” “chaos theory,” “Lorentz Attractor,” (God, they’re beautiful!) and I wound up on the page for, “Takens’ Theorem.” This is where I gave up: **“Assume that the dynamics f has a strange attractor A with box counting dimension dA. Using ideas from Whitney’s embedding theorem, A can be embedded in k-dimensional Euclidean space with k \> 2 d\_A. That is, there is a diffeomorphism φ that maps A into Rk such that the derivative of φ has full rank.”** Uh, okay. I’m glad you guys are on top of this stuff. I think I’ll have some soup and go to bed. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2011, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-its-so-hard-to-get-things-done/589235/2 "2011-07-16T12:34:59Z")
I haven’t heard of Takens Theorom for yonks. Never, actually. ---
**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2011, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-why-its-so-hard-to-get-things-done/589235/3 "2011-07-16T13:36:46Z")
When I am totally bored I wander over to Wikipedia and put the mouse over “Random Article” and click the day away… Though when I am done I often feel like I did learn something new.