Domino Chain Reaction

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by Jay, 9 years ago
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A domino can knock over another domino about 1.5x larger than itself. A chain of dominos of increasing size makes a kind of mechanical chain reaction that starts with a tiny push and knocks down an impressively large domino. Original idea by Lorne Whitehead, American Journal of Physics, Vol. 51, page 182 (1983). See http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0401018 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.0615 for sophisticated discussions of the physics. As seen on QI in the "kinetic" episode. I was contacted by those Elves.