Domino, also known as a domino block or a domino piece, is a small rectangular wooden, clay, or plastic game block used to play various games of skill and chance. The pieces are marked on one side with an arrangement of dots or pips, similar to those on a die, and blank or identically patterned on the other. The pieces are usually rectangular, but some are shaped as circles or ovoids. They are often glued together, or joined by a line, to form larger sets. In addition to playing domino, they are frequently used for art projects and displays of architecture.

A physicist demonstrated in 1983 that the effect of a domino knocking over another piece is not just an illusion of causality, but rather occurs because of an “all-or-nothing” phenomenon. This is the same principle that explains how nerve impulses travel down a nerve cell and are not affected by the size of the triggering signal.

The first domino to fall in a row causes the others to topple, like a chain reaction. But the effect is not instantaneous – it takes time for each domino to fall because the other pieces are still anchored on their base. The speed at which they fall depends on the distance between each piece, which is in turn determined by how much force is applied to a domino that is already standing upright.

This is also why, when the domino effect takes place, it is important to be patient and wait for each one to fall in its own time. In a story, each scene is a domino that has the potential to influence the next. A writer may not know how a particular scene will unfold, but if the dominoes are carefully laid out, the plot can progress organically, in a way that makes sense to the reader.

For example, a scene in which the protagonist does something immoral might cause his or her subsequent actions to follow suit, just as dominoes fall one after the other. This is a key part of the logic of a story, because it gives readers a reason to forgive or understand what a character has done and why.

Hevesh, who is a professional domino artist with more than 2 million YouTube subscribers, creates intricate domino setups for movies, TV shows, and events. She works with teams on projects involving thousands of dominoes, and her largest creations take several nail-biting minutes to complete. To ensure that each section of a display will work properly, Hevesh tests each piece before assembling it. She then films the results in slow motion to make precise adjustments. This approach allows her to fine-tune each element of the setup. It also helps her to visualize the whole display, which is particularly useful when she is building 3-D structures. This is how she crafted the giant Domino’s pizza box pictured above. She also worked with a drone and a bicycle to test out new ways to deliver pizza.