Little Dominoes Tip Big Dominoes

Did you know that in a topple of only 9 dominoes, it's possible to knock over a domino 15,000 times the mass of the first domino?  And, when the last domino falls, it will have more than 2 million times the energy of the first?

This is one of my very favorite ideas in Domino Theory.  Here's the story...

When I first started developing Domino Theory back in 2002, I came across this very cool experiment that involved dominoes set up in a exponential grow series.  I decided to follow the directions on the site and build my own.  It worked!  But what was truly amazing was the weight difference between the first domino and the last.  The first domino was so light that I could barely feel it in my hand.  The last domino was so heavy it was hard to lift!  And, let me tell you, when that last domino fell and slammed into the ground it was loud!

I wish I had a picture of my dominoes to share, but it appears they are MIA.  The good part of that is that I get to make them again (now that I'm going crazy with all this domino stuff).  Here's a picture from the the website so you can get an idea of what this looks like.

What's happening is that each domino in the topple is 1.5x larger than the previous.  In other words, it's 3.3 times heavier (1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5).  As the topple falls, each domino strikes the next with just enough energy to tip it over.  As this happens the energy in the topple is increasing, eventually to the point that the last domino is falling to the ground with more than 2 million times the energy of the first.

This experiment had a huge effect on Domino Theory.  It suggested that a topple could make a HUGE impact in a short period of time if each person in the topple was "more powerful" than the previous. 

Think about it, a kid comes up with an idea to collect pennies.  A teacher gets involved, then a principal.  It becomes a school project that gets coverage in the local paper, which is read by a TV producer who's best friend works for Oprah.  Oprah covers the story, and millions of parents get behind the movement.  The Gates Foundation decides to match every dollar raised and commit the money to their Global Development initiatives.

So, next time you think "that would be cool, but I could never get that done."  Think again.  It's just a topple where each domino in the chain is more powerful than the next.

I'll be writing much more on this topic...

Comments

[Vahe]

Interesting - similar to what happens with energy releasd by earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. The total energy of a tsunami wave can be the equivalent to about five megatons of TNT (20 petajoules). This is more than twice the total explosive energy used during all of World War II (including the two atomic bombs) ... all often started by a shift of plates underground and underwater.
Now compare that to the energy of an idea stimulated by a nerve cell ....

[Adam B]

Wow, this simple idea just blew my mind a little bit. I've always had an intuitive understanding of the importance of building momentum when trying to achieve a goal, and totally buy into the idea that "success breeds success," but I've never really thought about how the cumulative energy in the system can build to make it possible to achieve even greater things.

The saying should read more like "success potentially breeds even larger amounts of success" to reflect the possibility of exponential-like, and not just linear, growth. I say “potentially” because there are always going to be sources of friction in the system similar to the ones that you identified in your "bummer" post, and “exponential-like” because, unlike real dominoes which are constrained by the laws of physics, there is no defined upper limit on how much the energy can increase from tip to tip in the real world.

For example, using your "buy a stranger dinner" topple, say you pick up my $20 tab at the West End Tavern and then a week later I turn around and pay for a couple's $300 anniversary dinner at The Kitchen, I would think that would be best represented by a larger domino, assuming that in this topple, "money spent" is one indicator of the total energy in the system.

Similarly, if that couple continues the topple by buying a number of different people dinner, that would be represented by multiple forks in the topple consisting of dominoes of varying sizes reflecting the "money spent" along with the other important dynamics that are probably much harder to quantify.

If you go even further and time-stamp each of these events, you would have a way to roughly visualize the total amount of energy in the system at any one time, and could subsequently calculate the rate of growth of the topple in a more meaningful way that just counting the individual “tips.”

Anyway, love the concept and and am looking forward to following it some more as it develops.

[Herb]

Vahe,

Very cool way to look at things. I've never thought about the energy of a single nerve cell and how that grows into actions that have big effects. I've been reading some New Age kinds of things about energy transfers between people. I honestly don't know what to think of it at times, but I do believe we effect each other in "mystical" kinds of ways.

Also, when you see the world through the Domino Theory perspective, you see the tsunami as a wave that in then set in motion millions of "branches". In fact, The Wave is still moving, forking, etc. In other words, the insanely powerful tidal wave is still moving, changing lives, etc. How many things are happening today that would have never happened if those plates in Ocean didn't move? Of course, not all good stuff, but I'm sure there are some positive energy flows as well.

It could be very interesting to study the tsunami indepth through the Domino Perspective. I put that on the list...

Thanks for the comment.

[Herb]

Hi Adam,

Glad it touched a nerve. That's my hope.

Regarding dominoes of different sizes with the "Buy Dinner for A Stranger" topple, I totally agree. In fact, I was talking to someone the other day and they were saying that they would rather buy dinner for someone more "in need." I get that, and that's a fine way to tip things over with this topple. But, I also pointed out that in buying dinner for someone at "nice" place might create an impact like this:

The person is eating alone. Obviously thinking hard about something. You buy them dinner. They see this as a "sign" they should say 'yes' to the organization that is asking them to make a $25,000 donation to create an endowment for helping homeless families. They go to the Domino Theory website and tell this story, which inspires someone else who.... (and so on).

I don't want to suggest that people with money are more "powerful" in Domino Theory. Money is simply one resource that can make people more powerful in a topple. People without loads of money find their power in other ways. Either way, the person needs to get tipped over and pass the energy on to the next domino.

Finally, I'm working on modeling the economic impact of topples, and how this can be tracked in order to "skim" for a deserving organization. More on that later, but it was cool to see that you picked up on the fact that topples have an economic impact.

[Tim Enwall]

Domino Sage(s):

I strikes me that, based on some of these posts, there are several forms of "increasing energy":

1) one domino tips a larger domino (more energy) and so on.
2) one domino tips 3 dominos (e.g. the anonymous couple whose dinner was bought buys 3 more couples dinner and so on). Possibly the same size (or even smaller) domino, but the mass of the entire chain(s) is greater than the individual and, thus, far more energy/power.

Maybe there are other forms -- but these two are the obvious ones that appear.

One thought that occurred to me as I read the Topple 00000002 and thinking about the "money = size/energy of the domino" I don't think that has to be the case. Someone who can't afford the $$ to buy someone else an anonymous dinner could, instead, decide to make a batch of cookies and hand them out at a local bus-stop (or similar gathering place) with a "note" about the domino # and the reference to the purpose of the domino/topple.

I do think the key here is somehow to convey, quickly/easily the "purpose" of the topple so that the person whose dinner is bought but can only make cookies actually finds out the purpose, gets some creative inspiration on how to carry forward the random-act-of-kindness AND pass along the domino serial number. The web, as you point out, auto-constrains the overall energy of the domino to those with Web-access -- so quite a few strands of the domino threads may just go thud because the person lacks legitimate access to a medium that can explain the purpose of the Topple.

Which begs the question: 800# + IVR? E.g. "enter the Topple Serial # and we'll tell you the purpose of the Topple and how/where to 'learn more'".

Great stuff!