Home > Dice

The most common dice are small cubes 1-2 cm across, whose faces are numbered from one to six (usually by patterns of dots), with opposite sides totalling seven. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 can be set either in clockwise or in counterclockwise direction.

In Unicode, the faces of common cubical dice are ⚀ ⚁ ⚂ ⚃ ⚄ ⚅.

Dice are thrown to provide (supposedly uniformly distributed) random numbers for gambling and other games (and thus are a type of hardware random number generator); however, because the edges of typical dice are often rounded, they do not provide fair (uniform) random numbers. Casino dice come the closest to true uniformly distributed random numbers.

Dice are thrown, singly or in groups, from the hand or from a cup or box designed for the purpose, onto a flat surface. The face of each die that is uppermost when it comes to rest provides the value of the throw. A typical dice game today is craps, wherein two dice are thrown at a time, and wagers are made on the total value of up-facing spots on the two dice. They are also frequently used to randomize allowable moves in board gameA board game is any game played with a premarked surface, with counters or pieces that are moved across the board. Simple board games are often seen as ideal "family entertainment" as they can provide entertainment for all ages. Some board games, such ass such as BackgammonBackgammon is a board game for two players. Each player has fifteen pieces checkers which move between twenty-four triangles points according to the roll of two dice. The objective of the game is to be first to bear off i. move all fifteen checkers off th.

" LoadedA loaded die is a die that has been tampered with to land with a selected side facing upwards more often than it would simply by chance. There are several types of loaded dice. If the dice are not transparent, weights can be added to one side or the other" or "gaffed" dice can be made in many ways to cheat at such games. Weights can be added, or some edges made round while others are sharp, or some faces made slightly off-square, to make some outcomes more likely than would be predicted by pure chance. Dice used in casinoTrump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey A casino is a building that accommodates gambling. Customers may gamble by playing slot machines or other games of chance (e. craps, roulette for more see casino games). Game rules usually have mathematically ds are often transparent to make loading more difficult.

In cookingCooking is the act of preparing food for consumption. It encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to improve the flavour and/or digestibility of food. It generally requires the selection, measurement and combining of ingr, to dice means to chop into small cubes, in allusion to the dice used in games.

1 History

Dice probably evolved from knucklebones, which are approximately tetrahedralA tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, three of which meet at each vertex. A regular tetrahedron is one in which the four triangles are regular, or "equilateral," and is one of the Platonic solids. The area A. Even today, dice are sometimes colloquially referred to as "bones", as in "shake them bones". IvoryIvory is a hard, white, opaque substance that is the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals such as the elephant, hippopotamus, walrus, mammoth, etc. Prior to the introduction of plastics, it was used for billiard balls, piano keys, buttons and ornamental, boneFor other uses of the word "bone", see bone (disambiguation). Gray's illustration of a human femur, a typically recognized bone. Bone refers either to a hardened connective tissue or to one of the individual structures, or organs, into which it is formed,, wood, metal, and stone materials have been commonly used, though the use of plastics is now nearly universal. It is almost impossible to trace clearly the development of dice as distinguished from knucklebones, on account of the confusing of the two games by the ancient writers. It is certain, however, that both were played in times antecedent to those of which we possess any written records.

The fact that dice have been used throughout the Orient from time immemorial, as has been proved by excavations from ancient tombs, seems to point clearly to an Asiatic origin. Dicing is mentioned as an Indian game in the Rig-veda. In its primitive form knucklebones was essentially a game of skill played by women and children. In a derivative form of knucklebones, the four sides of the bones received different values and were counted as with modern dice. Gambling with three or sometimes two dice was a very popular form of amusement in Greece, especially with the upper classes, and was an almost invariable accompaniment to banquets (symposium).

The Romans were passionate gamblers, especially in the luxurious days of the Roman Empire, and dicing was a favourite form, though it was forbidden except during the Saturnalia. Horace derided the youth of the period, who wasted his time amid the dangers of dicing instead of taming his charger and giving himself up to the hardships of the chase. Throwing dice for money was the cause of many special laws in Rome. One of these stated that no suit could be brought by a person who allowed gambling in his house, even if he had been cheated or assaulted. Professional gamblers were common, and some of their loaded dice are preserved in museums. The common public-houses were the resorts of gamblers, and a fresco is extant showing two quarrelling dicers being ejected by the indignant host.

In Japan, China, Korea, India, and other Asiatic countries, dice have always been popular and are so still. The markings on Chinese dominoes evolved from the markings on dice, taken two at a time.