Domino is a flat, rectangular tile with a line that divides its face into two square ends. Each end is either marked with a number of spots (pips or dots) or is blank. These gaming pieces make up a domino set, which can be called a deck or pack.
Dominos are popular as tiles for a variety of games, and the game of dominoes has been around for centuries. Some of the most popular games involve matching the ends of a domino.
The word domino comes from the Italian words domino and occhio, meaning “pip or dot.” These words were first recorded in 1771 in the Dictionnaire de Trevoux.
There are several types of dominoes, ranging from a simple double-six set with 28 tiles to more elaborate sets that include as many as 55 tiles. The traditional European domino set consists of 28 tiles, each with the number of pips or dots on one of its ends.
These tiles are used in a wide range of games, including layout and blocking games as well as scoring games. Some domino sets also have special characters.
Some dominoes are asymmetric, so that they have different numbers of pips or dots on each end. These tiles are often referred to as “blanks” or “duplicates.”
When a domino is thrown, the pips on one end are pushed toward the other. This creates friction and can cause a domino to fall.
A domino’s physics is important in the game of dominoes, but it also can be used in other ways to teach children about energy and how it works. Stephen Morris, a physicist at the University of Toronto, says that when a domino is upright, its potential energy is stored in its shape, much like the way water is held back by gravity. As a domino falls, however, much of that potential energy is transformed to kinetic energy, which is the energy of motion.
This change in energy creates a chain reaction that knocks over all of the dominoes that follow it. It’s not a pretty sight, but it’s a great lesson for kids.
Think of each plot beat in your novel as a domino. If you can show your readers that every single domino in your story has a direct impact on the next, it will be easier to make them care about what happens.
Using the domino effect is an easy way to make your stories more engaging for kids. They’ll have a fun time designing their own dominoes and thinking about what it means to play this game with their own sets of gaming pieces.
If you’re writing a novel, it may help to picture your character as an artist who has created a unique design for a domino set. Whether it’s straight lines, curved lines, grids that form pictures when the dominoes fall, or stacked walls, designing your own set of dominoes can be an interesting creative process.
It’s also a useful metaphor for plotting a novel. Whether you’re composing your story off the cuff or taking your time with an outline, plotting is about creating a series of events that will lead to the next step in the story.