Dominoes are the classic game of setting up a line of one domino after another and then flipping over that first piece. The next domino in line is then tipped over, and so on until the whole line topples. This simple sequence is enough to entertain kids for hours and allows people of all ages to create intricate domino structures and artistic arrangements.
It’s easy to see why the game has endured for more than a century. Dominoes are small plastic squares with a pattern of dots or pips on the face, and blank or identically patterned on the other side. Each domino has a line or ridge that separates the two sides. A domino with a single pips is called a “single,” and a double-pipped tile can either count as one or as two (depending on the rules).
Most dominoes are arranged in long lines. To play, players draw tiles from a pile, or stock, and then place them on the edge of the table in front of them. When the player is ready to play, they “knock,” or raps the table, and the opposing player may then play a domino if he or she has that tile available. Depending on the rules, players score points by matching the number of pips on their remaining tiles to those of the opponents.
The basic game can be played by two or more players with a double-six set. The 28 tiles are shuffled and placed on the edge of the table, with each player drawing seven. The rest of the tiles are not used and form a boneyard, or stock. The player with the most remaining tiles is declared the winner.
Despite being small, dominoes have very high centers of gravity and require just a slight force to tip them over. Stephen Morris, a physicist at the University of Toronto, has shown that a chain reaction of 13 huge dominoes can be triggered by an input of two billion times the weight of the tiny first domino. He calls this the domino effect, or an example of how a tiny action can have much larger–and sometimes even catastrophic–consequences.
A domino artist, or “domino sculptor,” uses science to create incredible displays of the game’s possibilities. Lily Hevesh, who has won many awards and a Guinness World Record for a circular domino arrangement, says that one physical phenomenon is essential to her work: gravity. This force pulls a knocked-over domino toward the ground, converting energy into kinetic energy that causes the next domino to fall, and the one after that, and so on.
Hevesh carefully tests each section of her larger installations before she assembles them. She then films the setup in slow motion to be sure each part is working properly. When all the pieces are positioned, Hevesh will often take several nail-biting minutes to push over the whole arrangement, which can take hundreds of thousands of dominoes. The results are awe-inspiring, and Hevesh has a way of explaining the process that is both fascinating and informative.