Dominoes are black and white square blocks with a unique feature: each has a number of pips (or dots) that match up on the opposite ends. There are 28 such tiles in a complete domino set. Dominoes are played as a game or used to create artistic arrangements.
The term domino is also a figurative term that means the effect of something causing other things to happen in a cascading fashion. A person can use this concept when describing the spread of an idea or events, for example: “The death of a young boy in a small town caused a domino effect of crime that swept through the whole region.”
In sports, a domino effect refers to a series of wins that leads a team to the state playoffs or championship. Similarly, a domino effect can be described as the spread of goodwill in a community or in the workplace.
Dominoes are an interesting toy because of their versatility and variety of uses. Some people line them up in straight lines, while others make intricate designs with them. The most popular activity with dominoes, however, is to play games with them. Domino games can involve blocking or scoring, and they can even be used to duplicate card games.
Although a number of different kinds of domino games exist, most of them have one thing in common: they involve laying dominoes down on a table and then knocking them over. There are many different ways to do this, but the most important factor is that each domino has an equal number of pips on both sides. A single tile has only two pips, while a double has six.
The first domino game was probably a simple counting game. Players would build a chain of dominoes by putting down one tile after another. The goal was to reach a total that was divisible by five or three. Each time a domino reached a multiple of five or three, the player scored points by adding the corresponding number of dots on the other end of the tile. The winning player was the first to reach a certain number, and the game ended when a player could not continue to add more dominoes to the chain.
A Domino Effect in Writing
For writers, the domino effect is a useful concept to understand and apply in plotting a story. In a novel, the domino effect is often seen in the way that an event leads to another and then to more events. It is important for writers to think of this when creating their plots, as it can help them keep the momentum of a story going in the right direction.
A Domino Artist
Domino artist Hevesh uses a combination of science and careful craftsmanship to create her impressive displays. Hevesh has worked on projects involving hundreds of thousands of dominoes, and her largest installations can take several nail-biting minutes to fall. She credits the laws of physics for her amazing creations. She explains that the main force at work is gravity: When a domino is knocked over, it pulls toward the ground and then crashes into other dominoes, starting a chain reaction.