Dominoes are rectangular, square pieces of plastic or wood that have a number of spots called pips on one or both ends. These pips are either blank or have a number of spots on them that can be counted from one to six.
They are used in games of chance, as well as in the game of dominoes itself. The most basic game is played with a set of 28 dominoes, which are placed in a pile called the boneyard before the game begins. Each player chooses seven dominoes from their stock and starts the game by playing one of these dominoes, which must have an end that matches a pipped end of the first domino played by the other player.
The most spectacular of dominoes are those that fall in a single, circular arrangement. These designs can take several minutes to tumble, and they require precision to achieve.
In order to make these displays, physicist Lily Hevesh uses science to create her mind-blowing designs. She follows a similar engineering-design process to her more traditional art installations, using the laws of physics to ensure her creations are safe and that the end result will look great.
Hevesh says that the main physical phenomenon that makes her projects possible is gravity. “Gravity is the thing that allows all the dominoes to tumble,” she says.
She also believes that the Domino Effect is based on commitment and consistency. “As long as you are able to stick to it, it will pay off.”
When she first started tumbling dominoes, Hevesh noticed that many of the dominoes she placed had inertia, which is a natural tendency for objects to resist motion when there is no outside force pushing or pulling them.
However, a small nudge can knock over a domino, and that is enough to start a chain reaction of energy that can cause the rest of the dominoes in the display to tip over as well.
This is how a domino’s potential energy, which is stored based on its position, becomes kinetic energy. Once it falls, this kinetic energy is transferred to the next domino, which in turn causes it to fall.
According to a paper by the University of Toronto physicist Stephen Morris, this process of converting potential energy to kinetic energy is what makes a domino’s movement possible.
Moreover, because the energy that is transferred to the next domino is in the form of kinetic energy, the amount of potential energy is actually increased.
The amount of kinetic energy that can be converted from potential energy to kinetic energy can be very large. In fact, this process can cause the next domino in a line to tip over, creating an amplification factor that can be as much as 2 billion times greater than the amplification factor for the first domino.
The resulting chain reaction can result in enormous dominoes that could knock down the world’s tallest building, or it could even be a matter of life or death for the next person standing in front of the tipped over domino. But if you want to use the domino effect to transform your business or your personal life, it’s important to know what exactly you need to change and how you can make it happen.