Dominoes are a fun way to spend time with family and friends. They also make for a great learning tool. Whether you are using the classic set or creating your own, domino is an excellent way to learn about gravity, patterns, and numbers.
The word “domino” comes from the Latin, dominus, meaning master of the house. The word eventually evolved into the French and English dominie, which is where we get our current word, domino. Dominoes are flat pieces of clay or resin with a line in the center to visually divide them into two halves. Each half has a number of spots, or pips, that determine its value. The value of a domino can be determined by counting the number of pips on both sides of the piece. It can also be determined by adding the pips on one side to those on the other.
Normally, each domino is twice as long as it is wide. This allows for them to be stacked together and then moved around by hand. Some sets are made from natural materials like bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), ivory or dark hardwoods such as ebony. Others are made from polymers like styrene and ABS. The pips on the ends of each domino are usually painted white or black.
When a domino is played, it falls over and pushes on the next domino that has no pips to fall on, causing that domino to move. The resulting chain of events can be very dramatic and entertaining to watch.
The most common type of domino game is the positional game where a player in turn places a domino edge to edge against another in such a way that the adjacent faces are either identical (e.g., 3 to 5) or form a specific total. These games can be as simple or complicated as you wish, and they are very popular.
Hevesh is a professional domino artist who has created stunning, larger-than-life displays for movies, TV shows and even an album launch by pop star Katy Perry. She has created hundreds of videos on YouTube where she demonstrates the construction of her creations.
Hevesh builds her complex designs by making test versions of each section before assembling them. She carefully records the process so that she can see how it works and correct any mistakes before putting the entire set up. She has worked on projects involving more than 300,000 dominoes. Her largest 3-D sections take several nail-biting minutes to tumble.