Domino, like its cousins playing cards, has been used for centuries as a game for entertainment, education, and strategy. It has many different types of games that can be played, some using scoring and others that involve blocking opponents’ play or replicating card patterns. Dominoes can also be used to teach children number recognition and counting.
The word domino derives from the Latin dominus, meaning “lord.” A domino can be used as a symbol of power and authority. It can also be a metaphor for something that has a huge impact, a “domino effect.” A person or event that affects many people in an unexpected way is often described as a domino effect.
For example, a drug price hike by one large retailer can set off a chain reaction of similar price increases by other smaller retailers, resulting in a domino effect whereby consumers pay more for prescription drugs than they did previously.
A domino is a small rectangular block, thumb-sized on both sides, with a face divided into two parts that bear an arrangement of spots or dots (known as pips). The number of pips on a domino represents the value of the domino on its opposite side. A complete set of dominoes has 28 such pieces, which can be laid out in a variety of curved and straight lines.
The oldest known set of dominoes was found in China and dates to the 1300s. The dominoes were made of bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother-of-pearl) or ivory and adorned with black or white pips inlaid on the surfaces. More recently, dominoes have been produced from a wide variety of materials, including stone (e.g., marble or granite); other woods (e.g., ebony); metals (e.g., brass or pewter); and ceramic clay.
These new materials and their associated designs have changed the look of domino sets. They are sometimes brighter and more colorful, but they can also have a heavier weight than traditional sets. Some sets feature the top half thickness in a material such as MOP or ivory, with the lower half in a dark hardwood such as ebony.
During the 1990s, Domino’s Pizza CEO Patrick Doyle was determined to turn around his company’s poor performance and image. He was not afraid to make bold moves. For example, he opened Domino’s in Italy when no other American chains had done so. He worked with crowd-sourced auto designers to create a custom Domino’s delivery car, the DXP, which was compared to a “cheese lover’s Batmobile.”
Hevesh has made many amazing creations with dominoes, such as this 15-color spiral she built in 2017. But she says that even though she put them in a specific order and knew how each color would fall, it wasn’t always easy to predict exactly what would happen. She attributes this to what she calls “domino inertia.” Unlike an ordinary piece of wood, a domino has a lot of energy stored up inside of it that can be unleashed with a slight push.