Many children enjoy lining up dominoes into long rows and then knocking them down. Others like to play games that involve moving them around, building structures, or creating other patterns. But did you know that there is an entire world of possibilities for what can be done with these little black and white rectangles? Today’s Wonder of the Day is inspired by Juan, who wants to know more about what goes into making a domino fall.
A domino is a rectangular playing card-sized tile with a number of small squares on one side and blank or identically patterned on the other. These squares, called pips, are uniformly molded or drilled so that each has a different number of dots, from one (representing zero) to six (indicating the number of suits). Domino sets can be made out of various materials. The most common are plastic and polymer, but they can also be made of stone or wood (especially ebony). Some sets even have a combination of materials, such as a top thickness in silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl) or ivory with a lower layer of ebony.
In the Western world, dominoes are primarily used for playing positional games. During these games, each player in turn places a domino edge to edge against another in such a way that the exposed ends of the two dominoes match (one’s touching “one’s” and two’s touching “two’s,” for example). If the dots on the exposed ends of the two dominoes add up to a specific total, then that player scores points for the pair.
Most people are familiar with the most popular domino game, Draw. To play it, each player takes turns selecting a domino from the boneyard and then putting it down on the table so that the domino is adjacent to other dominoes either in its own row or horizontally across the top row. The first player to score points wins the game.
Dominoes are also often used to make art. For example, they can be arranged to create straight lines, curved lines, grids that form pictures when they fall, or 3D structures such as towers and pyramids. In fact, domino art can be so elaborate that some of it is exhibited in museums!
Some people also use dominoes as teaching tools to help students learn and remember information. For instance, teachers can have students create a domino chart to show the relationships between a topic and other topics. Then, when students are ready to learn more about a subject, they can refer back to the chart.
There are many other ways to use domino, and new ones continue to be developed. Whether it’s for fun or to teach students, domino is a great reminder of how tiny actions can lead to big results!