IAtionary: Death Energy

Death En-er-gy [DETH en-er-jee] n.

1. The form of energy created when the death of a creature in a fisix problem takes place; At the top of the Grand Canyon, you have a certain amount of gravitational potential energy. At the bottom, you have another. Separately, both states are OK. It's the connection between the two that's the problem: when you try to make that connection, potential energy is converted into kinetic energy...and death energy. Lots of death energy.

Language of Origin: Lyonese

In fisix class, a problem like the example sentence came up (in fact, I think that was almost exactly it). We're studying electricity, and conversations like "It's OK if you touch the one labeled 'plus,' and it's OK if you touch the one labeled 'minus,' but please don't touch them at the same time" come up a lot. In that example similar to the one above, which is used as a parallel of electrical energy, Mr. Lyons coined the term "death energy." I now bring it up as often as possible in class, like when IA students think that they might actually gain something from connecting the two terminals of a battery with pencil lead to watch the smoke, or connecting four six-volt batteries in series and touching them to their tongues.