Have you ever witnessed a domino show, where builders meticulously arrange thousands of pieces before using just a tiny push to topple them all at once, or fallen into an extended state while watching cascading dominoes fall like raindrops onto a flat arrangement of dominoes? Probably! In these instances, we experience what’s known as the “domino effect,” when an action leads to another, similar to how dominoes cascade over each other like magic – or have read any novels where similar effects were used in creating plot lines like that in any writing? Similarly, how can your novel’s scenes create similar outcomes?
A domino is a small rectangular block made of material such as wood, bone or plastic with one face featuring lines or ridges and another featuring either blanks or identically-patterned areas. Each domino belongs to one of two suits of threes (threes) or blanks/zeros and may be stacked so as to form an uninterrupted row.
Dominoes can be used in a wide range of games, most often layout-style ones. Players take turns selecting and placing dominoes from a boneyard (or “domino pile”) until one has been used up; once this has happened, any remaining tiles stay put until another player decides to select and play one; first player using all their tiles wins the game!
Some of the easiest domino games involve just one player and are designed to offer a quick, straightforward way to test strategy and skill. Other types can be more complex and require players to work together towards accomplishing a given task. Traditionally, European-style dominoes were made from bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother-of-pearl), ivory, dark hardwood like ebony with either black or white pips; modern versions are usually composed of polymer materials instead.
Hevesh takes great care in creating her mind-blowing domino installations, testing individual sections to make sure they function as expected and then carefully assembling them all in their proper order – from large three-dimensional pieces down to flat arrangements that connect them all. Depending on the size of her installation, each domino may take several heart-stopping minutes before falling under gravity’s force as dictated by physical laws of physics.
University of Toronto physicist Stephen Morris acknowledges the essential role gravity plays in creating the domino effect. A domino with potential energy (stored stored energy based on its position) becomes transformed into kinetic energy when you knock it over; when knocked over, most of this stored potential energy converts to motion-related kinetic energy and transfers down its chain; providing push to its next domino for it to fall – an analogy applicable in any chain reaction, from hospital infections spreading to political crises.