Rate this phrase:0.0 / 0 votes

tickle the dragon's tail

To bring two subcritical masses close together in order to find the edge of criticality.

Etymology:

  • From the obvious risk of tickling a dragon's tail. In physics, it was first used by Richard Feynman to describe the experiments of Louis Slotin at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
89 Views
“

The laboratory head tickles the dragon's tail whenever we have guests as a show of machismo.

Collection   Edit    

Submitted on July 10, 2018

Additional definitions for 'tickle the dragon's tail':

tickle the dragon's tailTo do something that has a risk of going catastrophically wrong.
tickle the dragon's tailTo annoy an irritable person.
See them all »

Translation

Find a translation for the tickle the dragon's tail phrase in other languages:

cosquillas en la cola del dragón

Select another language:

  • - Select -
  • 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
  • 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
  • Español (Spanish)
  • Esperanto (Esperanto)
  • 日本語 (Japanese)
  • Português (Portuguese)
  • Deutsch (German)
  • العربية (Arabic)
  • Français (French)
  • Русский (Russian)
  • ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
  • 한국어 (Korean)
  • עברית (Hebrew)
  • Gaeilge (Irish)
  • Українська (Ukrainian)
  • اردو (Urdu)
  • Magyar (Hungarian)
  • मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
  • Indonesia (Indonesian)
  • Italiano (Italian)
  • தமிழ் (Tamil)
  • Türkçe (Turkish)
  • తెలుగు (Telugu)
  • ภาษาไทย (Thai)
  • Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
  • Čeština (Czech)
  • Polski (Polish)
  • Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
  • Românește (Romanian)
  • Nederlands (Dutch)
  • Ελληνικά (Greek)
  • Latinum (Latin)
  • Svenska (Swedish)
  • Dansk (Danish)
  • Suomi (Finnish)
  • فارسی (Persian)
  • ייִדיש (Yiddish)
  • հայերեն (Armenian)
  • Norsk (Norwegian)
  • English (English)

Nearby phrases

Some more phrases from our dictionary similar to tickle the dragon's tail

tickle the ivoriesslap and tickletail wagging the dogwhale tailturn tailTickle the Ivoriesmake head or tail oftail awaytickle someone's fancywhale tailtickle pinktail offtickle the ivorypiece of tail

How to pronounce this phrase?

Discuss this tickle the dragon's tail phrase with the community:

0 Comments

    Citation

    Use the citation below to add this tickle the dragon's tail definition to your bibliography:

    Style:MLAChicagoAPA

    "tickle the dragon's tail." Phrases.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 22 Dec. 2024. <https://www.phrases.com/phrase/tickle-the-dragons-tail_26706>.

    Powered by CITE.ME Cite.Me

    We need you!

    Help us build the largest human-edited phrases collection on the web!

    Quiz

    Are you a phrases master?

    »
    A football game starts with a kick _______.
    A on
    B up
    C off
    D out

    Browse Phrases.com

    #ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ