But parliamentary attention and the use of fashionable language aren’t the same as introducing words with the power to endure. This chapter explores tools that might determine which ideas last longer than others, and which can sort words that signify lasting shifts from words that flicker out after a moment in time. This chapter investigates hidden dimensions of temporal experience and appeals to our critical thinking. It asks how we might compose questions that lend themselves to algorithmic analyses that expand our definition of a distinctive event to include towering figures that broadly alter conceptual thinking for generations, such as a Steinem or a Linnaeus. That investigation dives deeper into the nuts and bolts of algorithms, tweaking how we assess their parameters. This methodological chapter aims to deepen the reader’s understanding of “divergence measures,” which offer a robust toolkit for detecting the difference between any two sets of documents.