Dominos are small, flat blocks used as gaming objects. Also known as bones, cards, men, or pieces, they feature a line in the middle that visually divides them into two squares and an arrangement of dots (called pips) on each end. Like playing cards and dice, dominoes are generic gaming tools that can be used to play many games.

When you think of a domino effect, you probably imagine one thing knocking over another much larger thing. But dominoes are usually the same size, and a single domino can actually tip over things about a tenth of their size. This is what makes them so powerful.

Hevesh is a professional domino artist who creates spectacular displays for movies, TV shows, and events. She has worked on projects involving hundreds of thousands of dominoes and helped set a Guinness World Record for the most dominoes toppled in a circular arrangement.

Creating these massive domino structures takes days and weeks of planning. Hevesh tests out each section of a display individually before putting it together, and she even films her test runs in slow motion to make precise corrections when needed. She is working with the laws of physics, after all, and sometimes the dominoes don’t want to do what Hevesh wants them to do.

While domino can be played with just a few tiles, most people prefer to use a full domino set to get the most out of it. In addition to having a variety of game types, a complete set of dominoes allows players to practice counting and basic math skills. A typical domino set consists of one unique domino for each possible combination of the number of dots on both ends, with the most common having six spots on each end. Larger sets include more readable Arabic numerals to make it easier for players to identify the value of each domino.

Almost any game can be played with dominoes. The most popular games include positional games where players place dominoes edge to edge on the end of other dominoes in such a way that their values are identical or form some specified total. Other popular games involve blocking the opponents’ play, such as bergen and muggins, or scoring points by counting the pips on winning dominoes. Still others involve forming patterns with the dominoes, such as threes and fives.