
a small rectangular block of wood or plastic with a surface bearing numbers resembling those on dice. A set of dominoes may consist of any number from 28 to more than a hundred. Dominoes are used to play games and also form parts of elaborate Rube Goldberg machines.
We’ve all seen the domino constructions in which, after tipping the first piece ever-so-slightly, all the rest fall in a beautiful cascade of rhythmic motion. These awe-inspiring displays are examples of the domino effect, a term coined by psychologist and sociobiology professor David Morris to describe any action that leads to another in the same pattern.
Dominoes are also a symbol of physics, with a simple physical principle at work: The potential energy stored in the initial domino remains unchanged until an outside force causes it to tip over. Then, all the energy it had stored becomes kinetic, or the energy of motion, and is transferred to the next domino in the line. This is what allows the thousands of dominoes that Hevesh uses to create her mind-blowing setups to fall so precisely in a controlled fashion.
A domino game is played with one or more players, who take turns placing a domino on the table and positioning it so that the end of the chain of dominoes touching it shows a particular number. The player then plays a domino with the same value from his or her hand and continues in this way until either the game ends, or no more dominoes can be played.
In addition to playing domino games, many people use dominoes to make artistic structures such as straight lines, curved lines that form pictures when they fall, grids that represent stacked walls, and 3D structures such as towers and pyramids. Artists can also plan out their domino tracks on paper using arrows to show the direction in which they would like their setups to fall.
Some domino sets are made of natural materials such as bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), ivory, or a dark hardwood such as ebony. These sets are often more expensive than those made of polymer, but they can have a more interesting look and feel. These sets are sometimes carved, inlaid with pips, or painted.
During the 1970s, some political analysts and historians used the domino theory to explain the rise of communist regimes in countries such as Benin, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Angola. The idea was that once these countries embraced Communism, they would eventually provide moral and financial support to revolutionary movements in other countries around the world—a domino effect. However, critics of this theory argue that the domino effect was more likely a combination of factors including international pressure and economic sanctions. However, the fact that some of these countries did eventually fall to communist control suggests that the theory has some merit. Whether or not the theory is true, the domino theory provides an intriguing metaphor for understanding global politics.