Domino is a game in which players arrange domino tiles edge to edge, forming lines or angular patterns, and then knock them down. The first domino to fall begins a chain reaction in which all the other pieces slide into place at once, just like a nerve impulse travelling down the length of an axon. The speed at which this chain reaction takes place is determined by the energy stored in each domino and the amount of force applied to it.
Hevesh, the 20-year-old woman whose YouTube channel has more than 2 million subscribers, uses thousands of dominoes to create elaborate designs that take several nail-biting minutes to fully toppled. Hevesh’s domino sets even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. “When you nudge one domino and it falls, all that potential energy becomes available to push the next,” says Morris. “That’s why the physics is so exciting.”
A domino is a flat, thumbsized rectangular block bearing an arrangement of spots, or pips, on its face, and blank or identically patterned on the other. There are 28 such dominoes in a standard set. The pips on the domino represent the different results of two six-sided dice (2d6) thrown. Dominos are commonly used for a variety of games played by laying them in lines and angular patterns.
Each player makes a play by placing a domino from his hand onto the table so that its pips align with those of an existing domino, or the ends are matched (either matching in a number of dots, or by having a certain total). Depending on the rules of the game being played, the resulting chain may reach one or more sides of the table. The game may then end when all of the remaining dominoes have been laid, or when all of a player’s tiles are out of his hand. At that point, he is said to have “chipped out.”
Whether the game continues or not depends on the winning strategy and scoring method agreed upon by the players. One common scoring method is to count the number of pips left in a losing player’s hand at the end of a hand or the entire game, adding that number to the score of the winner. The same method can be used to determine a tie, although in a tied game the winner is often the player who has placed more dominoes out on the table.
In the beginning, Domino’s focused on fast delivery. To ensure that pizza was delivered in the shortest time possible, the company introduced a 30-minute guarantee for customers. The guarantee caused problems, especially when it led to dangerous driving by Domino’s drivers. The company’s leadership was forced to make drastic changes, and it was these changes that essentially saved Domino’s from bankruptcy. The company has since recovered and continues to grow. The key to the company’s success has been its emphasis on locations, locating pizzerias near colleges and other large groups of people.