Dominoes are a classic childhood toy that can provide endless hours of entertainment. In addition to being a fun game, they’re also used in engineering projects and as the foundation for elaborate displays. Dominos also serve as an important metaphor for leadership and management. In fact, Domino’s CEO knows that the way he leads his employees will influence how the company is run.
In the game of domino, each player starts with a set of 28 tiles. The rest of the tiles are shuffled and form the boneyard, or “stock.” The players draw seven tiles to begin playing. Each tile has a line or ridge that identifies it as a particular piece. The other side of each tile is either blank or patterned with an arrangement of dots, known as pips. The number of pips on each end determines which games can be played. Dominoes with different numbers of pips are called extended sets. Common extended sets include double-nine, double-12 and double-15.
Each time a domino is placed, it must touch the end of another domino that has a matching number of pips. The ends of a domino can be either open or closed, but only the open ends are available for additional tiles to be played on. Usually, a double is placed cross-ways in the layout, straddling the end it is connecting to. Occasionally, the rules of a specific game allow additional tiles to be played on both short sides of a double.
When the first domino is knocked over, its potential energy converts to kinetic energy, which is transmitted to the next domino until it too falls. This continues for every domino that is touched, until the last one falls.
Dominoes are commonly made of a natural material such as bone, ivory or dark hardwood (e.g., ebony or mahogany), with contrasting white or black pips inlaid or painted. Sets are also sometimes made of metal, ceramic clay or even frosted glass. The choice of materials has a great effect on the look and feel of a domino set.
Often, dominoes are used as parts of Rube Goldberg machines and other mechanical art. In 2009, Finnish acrobat Salima Peippo set the world record for the most dominoes toppled at once. This set included over a thousand dominoes.
The domino effect is not only useful for demonstrating the power of physics, but it’s also a good metaphor for writing fiction. The point is to create a scenario in which something happens, and then have that something affect everything that comes after it. For example, if a character gets married in Chapter 1, that will probably have some repercussions in Chapter 2, and so on.
A domino is a metaphor for the way a writer develops a story, and the way the characters react to it. Creating a domino effect requires a little planning and some luck, but it can produce a novel that is compelling and engaging.