A domino is a small rectangular block, usually wood or plastic, that features from one to six pips or dots. There are 28 such pieces in a standard domino set. A person or group may play many different games with the tiles, including blocking and scoring. The word also refers to the overall effect of a chain reaction that causes dominoes to topple in a particular way—the “domino effect.”
The most common domino sets have either double-six (28 tiles) or double-nine (55 tiles). Some players choose to use extended sets, which add more tiles to increase the number of possible combinations of ends.
In Domino, players take turns placing a domino on the table and then attempting to match it with another. A player who can’t match a piece passes their turn to the opposing team. The first team to score all of their matching dominoes wins the game.
A physics professor explains how dominoes work: When a domino is standing upright, it has potential energy, which is its position-based energy. This energy is converted into kinetic energy when the domino falls, causing the next domino in line to topple and so on. As the dominoes continue to fall, their kinetic energy becomes increasingly converted into gravitational energy—as they move toward Earth, the force of gravity pulls them together and leads to an ever-increasing cascade of toppling dominoes.
Hevesh says that a key element in her success as a domino artist is understanding the fundamentals of physics. She explains that she carefully tests each section of her installations before building them together. She even films some of her tests to help her make precision corrections if something isn’t quite right.
When Hevesh is creating the largest sections of her installations, it can take several nail-biting minutes for each individual domino to tumble down. But she knows that the laws of physics will eventually work their magic.
Writing Tip for Today
When it comes to plotting a novel, there are countless ways to approach the process. Whether you go in with a detailed outline or write off the cuff, at its core, a novel is all about the reactions of your characters to each other. So, how do you create a compelling story that will keep readers on the edge of their seats? By embracing the domino effect.
The underlying idea is simple: Code + Data = Results. Each time you run your code, Domino will record and store both the code and the data it generates. These snapshots are then linked together, allowing you to trace any result back to the code and data that generated it. The ability to do this is critical in an environment where collaboration is so common, and it’s what makes Domino a powerful tool for developers.