A domino is a small, oblong piece of material with 0-6 pips in each half and used to play a variety of games. They are most often made of bone, silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother-of-pearl), ivory, or ebony with contrasting black or white pips. In the past, sets were also made from other natural materials such as stone (e.g., marble, granite, or soapstone); metals; ceramic clay; and even frosted glass. Unlike cards, dominoes can be played by groups of people of all ages and abilities. The game has a wide following worldwide, particularly in Africa and Asia.
While the most common use for domino is in positional games where a player tries to place a domino edge to edge against another to match its value, it has many other applications. Some of these are purely defensive, while others are more competitive and involve strategy and planning. Dominoes are also popular with architects and engineers for educational purposes and as a means of relaxing.
In 1983, University of British Columbia physicist Lorne Whitehead conducted an experiment where he set up 13 dominoes to show the true power of a domino effect. He found that a domino can knock down objects about one-and-a-half times its size.
The word “domino” is derived from the Latin dominus, meaning “lord, master” and originally denoted a long hooded cloak worn together with a mask during carnival season or at masquerades. It is suggested that the matching pips of the domino pieces reminded people of this garment. The domino theory was a political term that originated in the mid-1970s, when a journalist named Michael Lind coined it to describe his analysis of the fall of the Allende regime in Chile. The theory suggests that the success of Communist revolutions in some countries will encourage other nations to follow suit. In the 1977 Frost/Nixon interviews, President Richard Nixon defended his intervention in Chile using the domino theory as an argument.
Each player draws a hand of dominoes and begins play by placing a domino in his or her playing area. Once a domino is laid down, it cannot be held back and must remain in the playing area until a playable domino is placed on top of it. If a player draws more than the number of dominoes for his or her hand, it is called an overdraw and those extra dominoes are removed from the stock, returned to the table face down, and reshuffled before the next round. Then the next player begins his or her turn by drawing a domino from the stock. Any unplayable dominoes are passed to the player on the right.