Domino is a game in which players draw domino tiles from a pile, one at a time, and then place them on the table in front of them. Each tile has a line down its center that visually divides it into two squares; each of these squares is marked with an arrangement of spots or dots, called pips, which identify the value of each end of the domino. A domino with more pips on its ends is “heavier” or “more valuable” than one with fewer pips. The first player to lay a domino with matching pips begins the turn.

Lily Hevesh has been playing with dominoes since she was 9 years old. She is fascinated by how the simple, yet elegantly designed tiles can create such intricate and beautiful structures. She has spent much of the past decade building a massive domino museum in her home in St. Louis, Missouri.

The museum, which opened to the public in September 2018, displays some 2,000 domino pieces in an array of sizes and shapes, including three-dimensional structures and lines of dominoes that cascade across a wall. The museum has also become a teaching resource for local students and educators.

A physicist at the University of Toronto, Stephen Morris, says the reason dominoes stand upright is because they have potential energy. Each domino has the ability to push on the next one, but it requires a force to overcome this resistance. Once the first domino is pushed, the potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, which causes it to fall over and start the chain reaction that knocks down all of the dominoes.

As a child, Hevesh played dominoes with her family on weekends and after school. But it was not until she was a graduate student that she began to think about the science behind dominoes and how they can be used for scientific research.

Dominoes have a long history and many different uses. In addition to being a fun way to spend time with friends, they can be used for educational purposes in mathematics and physics classes.

One of the most common uses for domino is to play games of chance. There are a variety of different domino games, but the basic rules are similar: a player scores points by laying a series of tiles end to end. Each tile must touch the end of another, and the number of pips on each exposed end must match the total on the other side.

Dominoes are also popular for use in blockbuster films and video games such as Jenga. In the world of business, the domino effect is a theory that suggests that a change in one behavior can cause a shift in other behaviors, like eating less fat or increasing exercise, as a result of a snowballing effect. For example, a study conducted in 2012 by researchers at Northwestern University found that people who decreased their sedentary leisure activities subsequently reduced their daily intake of fat and sugar.