The history of dominoes goes back at least 800 years to Song Dynasty China. With design and logic inspired by dice, dominoes quickly led the Chinese to invent of a whole new range of games. The more familiar modern dominoes first appeared in Italy in the early 1700s. This western domino set traditionally consists of 28 “bones.” But if you add more, things can get creative in a hurry…
The first major “domino show” took place in 1976 when an 18 year-old from Pennsylvania put on a display of over 11,000 toppling dominoes. His appearance on The Tonight Show started a worldwide craze: people competed to topple ever-more dominoes in a single “chain reaction.” The record-breaker sent over 4.5 million of ’em tumbling. Only the first domino can be knocked over by hand. After that, they’re on their own.
But it’s not just about sheer numbers. Let’s meet professional domino artist Lily Hevesh. Her YouTube channel has over a million subscribers and it’s easy to see why. We’ve posted one of her videos below. You can watch, in time lapse, as she assembles a beautiful spiral of dominoes. She has to place them carefully, very carefully. One false move and the whole thing will go tumbling down. We’re guessing Hevesh doesn’t own a cat! The spiral she builds features a dazzling mix of colors and an amazing multi-story structure. It took 25 hours of work spread over eight days to assemble this mammoth piece of art. Oh, and 15,000 dominoes, too.
Once the dominoes start falling, the effect is amazing and sometimes hypnotic. There are swirls of color and several clever twists.
Were you astonished by the visual effects that can be created with nothing more than a bunch of dominoes? Let us know in the Facebook comments. Be sure to like and share so your friends can be dazzled by Lily Hevesh’s kinetic creation.
