Domino is a tile-based game that can be used to play games of chance or skill, to make patterns or designs, or simply to create a display. Its popularity has led to a wide variety of domino-related products, such as board games, card games, and other tabletop games. Dominoes are normally twice as long as they are wide, with a line or ridge down the middle to divide it visually into two squares, each marked with an arrangement of spots or pips (similar to those on a die) that indicate its value, from six to zero.
In the past, dominoes were made from natural materials such as bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), ivory, or a dark hardwood such as ebony. Modern sets are typically manufactured from polymer materials such as plastic or resin. They may also be made of metals, ceramic clay, or even frosted glass or crystal. These types of dominoes are often more decorative and expensive than those produced from plastic or resin, but they are also less likely to break or chip.
The word domino derives from the Latin “dominium,” which means, in part, the complete or total control of a place or situation. The word is also closely related to the phrase, “domino effect,” which refers to any action that cascades from one simple act to much greater—or even catastrophic—consequences.
When a domino is set up on its edge and then tipped over, it creates a chain reaction that causes the other pieces to fall in turn, forming an intricate pattern. This is what is meant by the term “domino effect.”
Domino art, a popular hobby and form of self-expression, can be as simple or elaborate as the artist wishes. Some artists create straight lines of dominoes that form pictures when they fall, while others build curved lines or 3D structures such as towers and pyramids. Whatever the design, a key factor in successful domino art is gravity.
This physical phenomenon is crucial to the domino effect, explains physicist Stephen Morris. When a domino is stood upright, it stores potential energy. When it falls, this energy is converted to kinetic energy—the energy of motion—which triggers the next domino to fall.
To score points in domino, players must lay a tile so that its exposed ends touch other tiles: first one’s touching two’s and then two’s touching three’s, etc. The total number of matching exposed ends is then counted. The game continues until either a player goes out by playing all of their tiles or one player wins by completing a specific number of lines.
Just like a domino, IBM Domino allows you to centralize your model execution—assigning jobs across machines, scheduling recurring tasks, and distributing models via REST API endpoints. Domino’s platform also offers self-service for internal consumers of your model—building lightweight, secure, and scalable web forms that let them run your model with their own parameter values. Domino can be run on-premises or in a multi-cloud environment, and is available as a fully managed cloud service.