Dominoes are small, rectangular blocks that can have anywhere from 0 to 6 dots on each side. Many people enjoy playing games with them, stacking them on end in long lines and then knocking them down. This activity inspired the phrase, the domino effect, which refers to the way that one simple action can trigger many more. Hevesh, an artist who creates mind-blowing domino setups, uses a version of the engineering design process when creating her installations. She starts with a theme or idea and then brainstorms what kind of images or words she might want to use. Once she has a list of potential options, she creates a mockup by placing them on top of each other in order to see how they look together.
When she is happy with the layout, she begins constructing the dominoes from wood or cardboard. When she is finished, she attaches the pieces to one another using glue or tape. She then tests the setups to make sure that they will work as she planned. She also considers the impact of her work and how it might be displayed. Finally, she photographs her creations and writes a description.
In the early years of the Domino’s Pizza company, it was difficult for Tom Monaghan and his partner James DeVarti to get their business off the ground. Their first restaurant opened in Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1967. It was not until the 1970s that the business began to grow, and by 1978 Domino’s had over 200 locations.
Domino’s has continued to expand its menu and open more locations since then. Its success has been largely due to its commitment to listening to customers and responding to their needs. The company’s founders knew that they needed to change the way they did business in order to survive.
The word “domino” comes from the Latin dominum, which means “heavy,” referring to the shape of the piece. The name may have also been inspired by an earlier sense of the word, which referred to a large hooded cloak that could be worn with a mask at a masquerade. The earliest known use of the term in English was around 1750.
Each domino is divided down its center into two squares that are marked with an arrangement of spots, called pips, similar to those on a die. A traditional set contains 28 dominoes, with one unique piece for each possible combination of ends that can be matched. More advanced sets are available, with the largest containing 190 dominoes.
A popular game with dominoes is a scoring version of fives and threes, in which players try to connect one end of their dominoes to another, scoring points each time that the sum of the two ends can be divided by five or three. A surprisingly large number of variations on this game exist.