The Domino Effect
by If you’ve ever watched a long line of dominoes being set up and then tipped over, you may have been impressed by the way that the individual pieces fell one at a time, in straight or curved lines. The individual dominoes have a kind of inertia that keeps them from moving until there’s a force, like a tiny nudge, that pushes them past their tipping point. Then, they fall as if by magic.
Dominoes are a game that teaches us about sequences and patterns. They are the cousins of playing cards and dice, and they’re among the oldest tools for game play. They are also one of the most popular toys for children, both because they can be fun to set up and then knock over and because they offer a variety of games.
A domino is a small oblong block of hard material such as wood or bone, with a value indicated by a series of dots on its surface. The most familiar domino is the double-six set, which has 28 tiles that are typically arranged in two rows of seven with a space between each pair. The spaces are called ends, and the values of each end match those of a domino on either side of it. The values on the end of a domino also serve to identify which domino is being played, since a player can only lay down a piece whose value matches the end of a previous domino.
The word “domino” comes from a Latin phrase meaning “lord, master,” and it was probably introduced into English around 1750. An earlier sense of the term referred to a loose hooded cloak worn with a mask for the upper part of the face at masquerades.
Educators use the term domino effect to refer to how certain skills affect other abilities. For example, if a student has weak foundational reading skills, they might compensate by using more sophisticated strategies that can tax their working memory capacity. But this can limit their ability to learn new information because the compensatory skill is taking up a lot of the available space.
Hevesh started playing with dominoes as a child and still loves setting them up in straight or curved lines, flicking the first domino over, and watching the rest of the line tumble down. She’s created some amazing structures, including a 15-color spiral that used 12,000 dominoes. Her work reminds us that the power of a domino action is not in its result but in the fact that one small action, like a flick of a finger, triggers a chain reaction. We can all apply the concept of the domino effect to our lives: a small victory right away can make you more motivated and excited about what’s ahead and better equipped to take on your biggest challenges.