In 1896, Ernst Zermelo noted a further problem with the H theorem, which was that if the system's H is at any time not a minimum, then by Poincaré recurrence, the non-minimal H must recur (though after some extremely long time). Boltzmann admitted that these recurring rises in H technically would occur, but pointed out that, over long times, the system spends only a tiny fraction of its time in one of these recurring states.