Domino is a small, flat rectangular block used as a game piece. The pieces are arranged on end in long lines, and when one is tipped over it causes the rest of the line to tip and so on, until all of the dominoes have fallen. Complex designs can be made by stacking the dominoes. Many children enjoy using them as toys to make lines of different shapes and then knocking them over. They also enjoy creating simple games that involve arranging dominoes in different ways. Dominoes have been around for hundreds of years. People have been using them for a variety of reasons, including making music and art.
Dominoes are normally twice as long as they are wide, which makes them easy to re-stack after playing with them. They feature a line in the middle to divide them visually into two squares. The squares are marked with an arrangement of dots, called pips, which indicate the value of the piece. A domino may have a single value, such as three or five, or it may have different values on each half of its face. For example, a domino with three pips on the left and five on the right is called a double-six.
The most common materials used to make dominoes are plastic, wood, and bone. However, they can also be made from a wide range of natural substances: marble and granite; soapstone; other types of stone; woods such as ebony or hickory; metals; ceramic clay; and glass or crystal. In addition to being less expensive than polymer dominoes, sets made from natural materials have a more elegant look.
One of the most popular uses for dominoes is in board games. The rules of a given game dictate how the dominoes should be arranged on the table and what each player must do to score points. The object of the game is to play all of your dominoes before the other players. If you can’t do this, you lose the game.
A more recent application of dominoes has been in the field of architecture. Domino builders create large structures by arranging and securing dominoes to form shapes that are difficult or impossible to build with regular building materials. The result is often very colorful and artistic.
Hevesh, a young artist who has become famous for her domino work, explains that when she starts to build a new display, she first creates test versions of each individual section. These she films in slow motion, allowing her to make precise corrections when needed. Only after the final version of each section works properly is she ready to put the entire display together.
When writing a story, it’s useful to think of the structure as a series of dominoes. Each scene in a novel should build on the previous scene, much like the dominoes on a board. This requires careful consideration of what should happen in each scene and how that relates to the overall plot.