Domino is a small, flat thumb-sized, rectangular block, the face of which is either blank or bearing from one to six pips (points or dots): 28 such pieces form a complete set. The term also applies to any of the various games played with such dominoes, usually by matching the ends of adjacent pieces and laying them down in lines and angular patterns.
The process by which Hevesh creates her mind-blowing domino installations is a bit like the engineering-design process: She tests out different arrangements and videos them in slow motion to see how they work. Once she has a few ideas for the whole piece, she starts building the individual sections. The biggest 3-D sections go up first, then she adds the flat arrangements, and finally the lines of dominoes that connect everything together.
Before a game of domino begins, the tiles are shuffled so that no one knows which is which. Each player draws a hand of dominoes, which they place on-edge on the table before them. When a tile is played, it must be placed square to another domino (except for doubles, which may be placed perpendicular to other doubles or diagonally across them). Once the chain of play begins, energy travels from one domino to the next until the last domino falls.
While a domino can fall due to its own weight, most dominoes are knocked over by gravity or other players. The force of gravity causes each domino to have potential energy, which is the amount of energy stored in the domino based on its position. When a domino is standing upright, the energy is released into the surrounding dominoes by the action of gravity and other forces. This energy is transmitted from one domino to the next, causing them to fall over in a chain reaction.
Traditionally, European-style domino sets were made of bone or silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), ivory, or a dark hardwood such as ebony, with contrasting black or white pips (inlaid or painted). More recently, the word domino has come to be used for games in which players score points by counting the number of pips on opposing players’ tiles. The player who reaches a predetermined score after a number of rounds wins the game.
Good dominoes are tasks that contribute to a larger goal and have a positive impact in the future. They are usually challenging and require a significant amount of time to complete, but they can be broken down into smaller parts and prioritized. This allows a person to remain focused on the most important task until it is completed.
When Domino’s CEO Steve Doyle took the helm of the pizza company in 2007, he quickly implemented a series of changes designed to modernize the brand. In addition to a new logo and redesigned delivery vehicles, he encouraged employees to use their creativity to solve problems at the restaurant level. One result of this policy was a custom-designed Domino’s delivery car—which an article called “the cheese lover’s Batmobile”—that features an oven big enough to hold 80 pizzas.