Dominos are small wood or plastic blocks, usually rectangular and marked with a grid of dots like those on dice. They are used to play games of chance or skill and can be made into beautiful works of art when set in curved lines, stacked walls, and even 3-D structures such as towers and pyramids. They are also a metaphor for larger business processes. A domino effect is the result of one event knocking over another, with each subsequent action occurring automatically due to the first. This concept can be used to explain business process changes, or it can help us understand why our favorite fictional characters behave the way they do.
A game of domino is traditionally played with a number of players on a large table with an area for each player to keep their tiles. The most basic domino variant requires a double-six set and is played by two players in turns. The 28 tiles are shuffled face down to form the stock, or boneyard, and each player draws seven of them. The first player then places a tile which starts the line of play and continues to extend it with matching tiles from one end. The other player then follows suit, and the game ends when a winning tile is played or the line of play is blocked.
Occasionally, the winner of a hand or game may want to count the total number of pips left in his opponents’ hands to determine how many points they have scored. Depending on the rules of the particular game being played, this method of scoring is often more fair than counting each individual domino’s dots (e.g. a four-of-five domino counts only 4 points).
After a game of domino is completed, the tiles are returned to the stock and reshuffled. Generally, the player who holds the highest double takes his seat at the head of the table, and the other players pick their seats based on the order in which they held the heaviest domino, or the rules of the game being played.
In some cases, the players draw new tiles from the stock to determine seating arrangements. The player who draws the heaviest double, for example, leads with that domino and the other players take their turns picking a domino until an opening double is found.
A physics teacher at University of British Columbia has shown how the power of the domino effect can be harnessed to move objects. Hevesh uses this concept in her designs for domino art, where she sets up lines of curved lines and grids that form pictures when they fall, or 3D structures such as towers and pyramids. Hevesh makes a test version of each section of her display and then films it in slow motion to check that the piece works as expected. This helps her make precise corrections if something doesn’t work as intended. Hevesh’s hard work and dedication pays off, as her pieces are breathtaking to behold.
