Domino is a game where players arrange tiles with numbers on each end in long lines. When the first domino is tipped over, it causes the rest to fall one at a time in a chain reaction. When done correctly, the process can create very intricate and complex designs. It has led to the phrase “domino effect,” meaning that a small action can have much larger and more catastrophic consequences.
Dominoes can be used to make simple straight or curved lines, grids that form pictures when they fall, stacked walls and 3D structures like towers and pyramids. Depending on the complexity of the layout, it can take minutes to hours for the dominoes to completely fall. While some people use dominoes just as a toy, others have turned them into an art form. Domino artist Lily Hevesh, who has worked on projects that have involved 300,000 dominoes, uses the laws of physics to create her mind-blowing installations. “Gravity is the main thing that makes my domino art possible,” she explains. This force pulls a domino knocked over toward Earth and gives it the momentum to push into the next domino, continuing the chain reaction until all the pieces have fallen.”
In business, the domino effect can be used to explain how a company with limited resources can turn around poor performance by implementing small changes that lead to bigger improvements. For example, in a company with low customer satisfaction ratings, the CEO could decide to make changes such as a relaxed dress code, leadership training programs and college recruiting system. This could then result in improved customer satisfaction scores and increased profits.
The word domino is derived from the Latin dominium, meaning “heavy.” A domino is a rectangular tile with a number of dots (or pips) on both ends. Traditional domino sets have 28 unique pieces, arranged with alternating white and black sides, each with a different number of spots from zero to six. Some sets also have blank ends with no pips, allowing for seven total faces.
Dominoes are most commonly played in positional games where each player takes turns placing a domino on the table so that its adjacent sides are either identical (e.g., two 6-6 dominoes count as 12) or a set total is formed (e.g., a domino with five matching 6-6s counts as 60). The winner of a game is the first person to reach a set score or accumulate the most points over a certain number of rounds.
In risk analysis of chemical process accidents, the domino effect is a common phenomenon. A detailed and accurate understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms of this effect is important for accurate accident escalation modelling. This is especially crucial because of the limitations in the availability of real-world data. In order to address these limitations, researchers have developed a wide variety of advanced methods for analysis of the domino effect. These methods are broadly classified as CFD/FEM models, probabilistic models and other advanced models.