Domino, the ancestor of playing cards, is one of the oldest tools for games and has been used to challenge and entertain generations. The simple rectangular tiles, also known as bones, cards, or men, feature an arrangement of dots or pips on one side and are blank on the other. They are stacked on end in long lines that can be toppled, one piece at a time, with each subsequent domino triggering the next in a chain reaction. The result is a cascade of falling pieces that can be used to make intricate patterns and even to construct models of buildings or landscapes.
When a domino is toppled, its pips are released in a pulse that travels at a constant speed without losing energy, much like the nerve impulses in your body. Unlike other pulses, however, the speed at which dominoes fall is independent of the size of the triggering stimulus and only depends on the distance between the pips on the first domino and its destination.
The earliest dominoes were functionally identical to playing cards and developed in China around the 12th or 13th century. The pips on the Chinese dominoes represented the results of rolling two six-sided dice, while the European version added seven extra symbols to represent the totals of all possible combinations. Dominoes have since become an indispensable tool for a wide variety of games.
From simple, family-friendly board and table games to complex competitions and championships, domino is played by millions of people worldwide. Some have become professional domino artists, creating spectacular designs that can take several nail-biting minutes to fall and set world records. One such artist, Hevesh, has millions of YouTube subscribers and creates domino setups for movies, TV shows, and events–even an album launch for pop star Katy Perry.
Dominoes are also used in a number of strategic games, including solitaire and trick-taking. Many of these are adaptations of card games and were popular in certain regions to circumvent religious prohibitions against playing cards.
In most domino games, each player is dealt a hand of dominoes, and the goal is to be the first person to reach a set number of points in a round, usually 61. Each domino in a hand has an open end, and the number of pips on that end determines whether a player scores. One point is scored for each domino in a play that matches an opening double (the highest of which, called the “opening” or “lead” bone), and for every multiple of 5 in the domino’s value.
A simple game requires a double-six domino set, 28 tiles that are shuffled and form the stock or boneyard. Each player draws a hand of seven dominoes. Players turn in order until they find a domino with an open end that matches the values of the dominoes already played. This process is referred to as setting or leading the opening bone, and in some games, the player who plays this domino is said to have “smacked down” it.