Domino, or dominoes, are small, rectangular blocks used to play a variety of games. They can be arranged in straight or curved lines, on a grid that forms pictures when they fall, or in 3D structures like towers and pyramids. They can be made from a variety of materials, including wood, clay, and plastic. Dominoes have been in existence for thousands of years and are still popular today, both as a form of entertainment and as a learning tool for children.
The way that dominoes are positioned contributes to their popularity and the complexity of certain games. Depending on the rules of a game, a player may earn points by placing a domino end to end (the touching ends must match, i.e., one’s touch two’s, or fives touch threes) or at right angles to the first domino. Some games allow players to place doubles on the end of a line, and these must be placed at either a left- or right-angle to the domino that is already there.
While many people enjoy playing dominoes with friends or family, some prefer to design more elaborate tracks and patterns in a quiet environment. This is often considered a form of art, and the results can be quite striking. Artists who create Domino Art typically draw a diagram of the track they would like to make with arrows showing the direction in which they think the dominoes should fall. Some artists may also include a theme, and this can be a good way to help focus the design process.
Dominoes have been produced in a wide variety of shapes, colors, and materials. They are most commonly made from polymer, but they have also been produced from ivory, bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl or MOP), ebony, and other types of hardwood. Some of these more natural materials have a distinctive look and feel, and they can be more expensive than polymer sets.
In the United States, dominoes are most commonly played with a standard set of twenty-seven double-sixes, and the winning player is the person who plays all of his or her tiles before the other players do. A number of blocking and scoring games are also played with a domino set, including the game of Bergen and Muggins. Some of these games are adaptations of card games and were once popular to circumvent religious prohibitions against playing cards.
When a domino is standing upright, it has potential energy, or energy that can be stored in the shape of the domino. When a domino is pushed, however, it converts some of its potential energy into kinetic energy, or energy of motion, and this energy flows to the next domino until it falls over. Then, that domino converts its kinetic energy into more potential energy, and the process continues. This is called the Domino Effect, and it is a great example of how a change in one behavior can trigger a chain reaction of related changes.