Dominoes are a series of flat, black-and-white rectangular pieces that can be lined up in long rows and knocked over by one another. They are used to play a variety of games and can help children learn to count. Today’s Wonder of the Day is inspired by reader Juan who wondered if a domino could really knock over something that was a lot bigger than itself.

A Domino

The word “domino” most often refers to the game of dominoes, which involves laying down a row of tiles and then knocking them over in sequence. Each domino has a line down its middle that separates it into two squares. Each square is marked with an arrangement of spots, called pips, that are similar to those on dice or playing cards. The dominoes can be used in positional games, where each player puts a tile edge-to-edge against an opponent’s tile, with the pips in the winning players’ hands determining the total value of the winning tiles.

A domino is also a symbol of the power of a chain reaction, and can be used to illustrate the concept of “the domino effect.” This phenomenon describes how one thing can cause a series of events that leads to a larger change than would have been the case without the first event. The domino effect can be seen in everyday life, and it’s often more powerful than we might realize.

One example is the way that a small nudge can cause thousands of dominoes to fall over. The key is that the thousands of dominoes have inertia, which means they resist motion unless there’s an outside force pushing on them. But once the first domino falls, it releases a huge amount of energy that can knock over thousands of other dominoes, even though each of those dominoes is only as big as the original one.

A career mercenary, Domino is a freelancer who specializes in explosives and weaponry. She has worked for various mercenary organizations and is a close ally of the mutant Cable (Nathan Summers). Domino’s probability-altering powers and combat training have made her a formidable foe for high profile opponents from Stryfe to Mister Sinister. She has also fought alongside the hero team Six Pack and served with X-Force. At the end of Reality-295, she revealed her true feelings for Cable and the pair kissed as Earth was returned to normal. Following that, she restructured X-Force into a proactive black ops unit.