Domino is a popular game in which players place domino pieces in a line to create a pattern or number. Each domino has a square on its face and is marked with dots or “pips.” The domino that begins the pattern sets the number of points it will add to its partner, which must match that amount exactly. The more pips a domino has, the higher its value. The first player to set all of their pieces down wins the game.
Dominoes are also used to build structures of increasing complexity. One example is the 15-color spiral that Lily Hevesh built in 2017 using 12,000 dominoes. Hevesh, who has won multiple awards for her creations, says she began playing with dominoes as a child. She loved setting up a line of them, flicking the first one and watching the rest fall, one by one.
She learned to play in her family’s home in Los Angeles, where she would set up dominoes and use her hands to make them fall. She now travels the world to compete in domino tournaments and shows people how to build impressive structures with the game. She says the key to making dominoes fall is understanding how they have inertia, which is a property that causes objects to resist movement when no outside force is pushing or pulling on them.
When she’s not traveling to competitions, Hevesh uses her own homemade dominoes to teach science and mathematics classes. She says she tries to incorporate dominoes into her lessons because they’re fun and educational. But she also tries to teach students the importance of physics and mathematics, such as how the shapes of dominoes affect their properties, like how a spiral’s shape causes it to slow down and fall faster than a straight line.
Historically, dominoes were made of bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl or MOP), ivory or dark hardwood such as ebony, with a black or white contrasting finish on the pips. Some sets are now produced from plastic, but the most common are still made of natural materials.
In addition to being fun, dominoes are useful for teaching and testing a wide range of mathematical skills, including fractions, algebra, geometry and patterns. They are also important for building spatial awareness and developing motor skills. They can even help improve math and reading comprehension skills.
The word domino comes from the Latin dominus, meaning “lord,” and has been used in English since 1750. In an earlier sense, the term referred to a loose hooded cloak worn together with a mask for the upper part of the face at masquerades.
There are many different ways to play domino, but the most common is to set up a row of tiles and then begin a chain reaction by placing a single domino on top of another domino with a matching value on both ends. The remaining tiles are then arranged as needed to complete the sequence.