Dominoes are a game played with rectangular pieces with white spots (pips) on them. Like dice and playing cards, dominoes are used in a variety of games. They are often used in positional games where players must move their dominoes edge to edge against the dominoes of other players to form a specific number or total.
They can be found in many different sets with one unique piece for every possible combination of two ends that have a certain number of spots, from zero to six pips. A traditional set called a “double six” contains 28 dominoes, each with six spots on each end. Other sets have more pieces.
The first domino in a set will have the highest value, so it’s the one that will be used to play the game. As the player moves their dominoes, they will knock the other dominoes over.
If a set of dominoes is lined up correctly, it will create an impressive pattern as they fall. The pattern is known as the domino effect.
It’s also a metaphor for personal strategy: If you want to accomplish something, find the action that will give you the biggest impact in the least amount of time. Then, work on that action.
That action will eventually produce other actions, which will produce more actions, and so on. It’s an effective way to get things done, and it can even make you more successful in the long run.
The most famous example of the domino effect is the American Revolution, when a large group of Americans fought to take back their country from a group of French and English colonists. The battles were a great success, and the domino effect helped Americans rally behind their cause.
This concept is also applied to sports, where teams use the domino effect to win games. If one team wins, the other teams have to work hard to win the next game.
When creating a domino design, Hevesh follows an engineering-design process to ensure that each part of her installation will work as it should. She then makes test versions of each section before putting it all together. She films the tests in slow motion so she can make exact adjustments as necessary.
She then adds flat arrangements and lines of dominoes to connect all the sections. She uses a variety of techniques to create the most impressive and eye-catching designs possible.
Hevesh’s most famous installations involve hundreds of thousands of dominoes, and she has set a Guinness World Record for the largest circular arrangement of dominoes: 76,017.
There are a lot of physical factors that influence the success of her designs, but Hevesh says one in particular is critical: gravity. When a domino is knocked over, it will inevitably move toward Earth, where it will be caught in the downward force of gravity and sent crashing into the next domino in line, setting off a chain reaction that will knock the entire set of dominoes over.