Rahul Sharma (Editor)

Domino (mathematics)

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In mathematics, a domino is a polyomino of order 2, that is, a polygon in the plane made of two equal-sized squares connected edge-to-edge. When rotations and reflections are not considered to be distinct shapes, there is only one free domino.

Since it has reflection symmetry, it is also the only one-sided domino (with reflections considered distinct). When rotations are also considered distinct, there are two fixed dominoes: The second one can be created by rotating the one above by 90°.

A domino tiling is a covering of another polyomino with dominoes. These figure in several celebrated problems, including the Aztec diamond problem In which large diamond-shaped regions have a number of tilings equal to a power of two, with most tilings appearing random within a central circular region and having a more regular structure outside of this "arctic circle", and the mutilated chessboard problem, in which removing two opposite corners from a chessboard makes it impossible to tile with dominoes.

In a wider sense, the term domino is often understood to simply mean a tile of any shape.

References

Domino (mathematics) Wikipedia