Dominoes are a kind of small rectangular blocks, usually thumb-sized, that are used as gaming pieces. They have a base and an open end, and they are marked with from one to six pips or dots. A domino set contains 28 such pieces. Most domino games involve matching the pips of the tiles and laying them down in lines or angular patterns. Some of the more common domino games include bidding, blocking, and scoring. Many people also play domino solitaire or trick-taking games, which are adaptations of card games.
While dominoes are commonly made of plastic, they have been produced from many other materials. For example, European-style sets were traditionally made of silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), ivory, or ebony with contrasting black or white pips. Such a set could cost several hundred dollars or more. In recent times, polymer dominoes have become very popular.
In a business setting, good dominoes are tasks that contribute to achieving an overall goal. Often these tasks are challenging and take a significant chunk of time to complete. But once they are completed, the impact can be long-lasting. In this context, it is important to know how to choose the right task for the day and prioritize it so that it gets the most attention until it has been successfully completed.
A company can also use dominoes to communicate values and goals in an interesting way. For example, a company might create a series of dominoes on a wall to illustrate its core values, such as “Champion Our Customers.” These dominoes can be reminders to employees of the importance of listening to customer feedback and acting on it.
As a form of art, domino can be used to make beautiful and intricate designs. Artists can make straight lines, curved lines, grids that form pictures when the dominoes fall, and even 3-D structures like towers or pyramids. The beauty of domino art lies in the creativity of the artist, as well as the way in which the artist arranges and positions the pieces to achieve a desired effect.
Stephen Morris, a physicist at the University of Toronto, says that when you line up dominoes vertically and then drop them, they convert from potential energy into kinetic energy based on their position. This energy can cause a domino to topple when it hits another, creating a chain reaction that causes more and more dominoes to topple.
When a player makes a mistake during a game of domino, they must call a halt to the game and try to correct their error. Depending on the rules of the game, players may then draw new tiles from the stock and resume the game. Typically, the player who draws the highest-ranking tile has first choice of seat. However, some games also have a system for determining seating arrangements by lot. This system involves shuffling the tiles and drawing one to determine seating order.