How Dominoes Work
When a domino falls, it creates a cascade of effects. Physicist Stephen Morris says that standing a domino upright gives it a “potential energy.” When it falls, this potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, which creates a chain reaction and causes another domino to fall.
There are many different ways that you can play dominoes. Some children like to line them up in long rows and knock them down. Others create intricate designs that form pictures when the dominoes fall. You can even create 3D structures using the pieces!
A domino set usually consists of 28 pieces. These pieces have a variety of nicknames, including bones, cards, tiles, spinners, and tickets. They can also be made from a wide range of materials, including woods (such as oak, ash, and redwood), ceramic clay, glass, metals, and frosted or crystal.
These pieces are normally twice as long as they are wide, so that it’s easier to re-stack them after use. They are usually marked with a number of spots or pips on one side, and a blank or identically-patterned face on the other.
The number of pips on a domino is generally referred to as its rank, or weight. As dominoes become larger, identifying the number of pips on each piece becomes more difficult, so some large sets are made with Arabic numerals instead of pips.
Dominoes are typically made from woods, such as oak, ash, and redwood, but are also manufactured from polymer materials. These can be much more expensive than other types of dominoes, but they tend to be stronger and look more attractive.
Some dominoes are made with contrasting black or white pips. These pips can be inlaid or painted. The top half of the domino is often made from bone or silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell, while the lower half is made from a darker hardwood such as ebony.
There are also dominoes that are only black and white on the front. These can be very useful in certain games, because they can help you identify which tiles have the same number of pips as the other.
When the first domino falls, it creates a chain reaction that travels down the row. It is like a nerve impulse, which moves at a constant speed and doesn’t lose energy as it travels.
This chain reaction can be a cause for concern in industrial settings, where the risk of explosions on plants is high. Studies show that explosions that produce domino effects are more likely to happen in countries where safety standards are not as strict as in developed countries.
There are a number of factors that can increase the risk of domino accidents in industrial plants and transportation, including improperly designed or maintained equipment, lack of communication between the different processes, lack of monitoring and control procedures, and a poor understanding of the role of the process. When evaluating plant layouts, it is important to account for these issues.