Domino is a game in which players use one domino or set of dominoes to play against another player or group of players. Each domino has a pattern of spots or pips on one side and is blank or identically patterned on the other. These pips are used to determine the value of each tile in a game, and are the same as those on a die. The first person to play all their tiles wins the game. There are many variations on this basic game, and a domino set can be made up of different numbers of tiles depending on the needs of a particular game.
A common way to arrange dominoes is to form a line of play. Each player then plays a domino on top of the line of play, placing it so that the two matching ends of the domino touch each other. The resulting chain of dominoes gradually builds in length. Some games may specify that the end of a double must touch the other end of the domino, or that the end of a double can be played to any tile on the line of play (so that, for example, the ends of a 5-5 tile match up).
In positional games, each player places a domino edge-to-edge against another domino on the table. Generally, the players do this in turn. If a player cannot play a domino because the other dominoes have already been placed, they must draw new hands and start again. The player with the heaviest double begins play.
Dominoes can also be used for artistic purposes, such as arranging them to form straight lines, curved lines, grids that form pictures when they fall, or 3D structures such as towers and pyramids. Creating such art requires careful planning, as the dominoes must be laid out to follow a predetermined design. Hevesh uses test versions of each section of an installation to make sure that it works before she lays it all out, and she films the process in slow motion so she can see what happens if something goes wrong.
Hevesh has worked on projects involving up to 300,000 dominoes and once held the Guinness world record for the largest circular domino arrangement: 76,017 dominoes. She credits one physical phenomenon for making her intricate installations possible: gravity. She describes how this force pulls each domino toward the ground, causing it to crash into the next piece and trigger a chain reaction.
As she lays out her designs, Hevesh starts with the largest 3-D sections first. She then adds flat arrangements and finally the lines of dominoes that connect them all together. Once her plan is complete, she lets physics do the rest.
Using dominoes in a business context can be helpful as well. Managers can often feel overwhelmed by a number of tasks, so it is important to prioritize and rank them in order of impact. This process can help managers break large projects down into manageable parts and focus on the most important task at hand.