By The Metric Maven

Mini Bulldog Edition

One day when I was visiting my dentist, I took note of a procedure whose details I had ignored for many years. My dental hygienist had me wait a moment while she found a person to help her. In this age of computerized toasters, the assisting woman appeared with a clipboard. I was reclined and expect this woman sat down in a chair located behind me. The hygienist then began to read off a series of integers, two, two, three, four, two, two, two, three, three,…. It rather reminded me of the number stations that existed (probably still do) on short wave radios. One can tune into them and listen to what is thought to be some code or cipher meant for some manner of operative.

I thought about it for a moment, and then asked “what are those numbers?”

“They’re pocket measurements of your teeth.”

Predictably I asked “are those values in millimeters?”

“Yes, millimeters.”

She was reading off the values at an astounding pace and the woman with the clipboard behind me was writing down the values. I then had another mystery on my hands.

“How on Earth are you measuring the values so quickly?”

The hygienist replied “oh, the periodontal probe is striped with one millimeter graduations.” She then showed me the probe and I could clearly see the one millimeter dark and light alternating stripes.

My dentist appeared and asked for the results compared with last time. I was rather pleased when she looked at the data and said with surprise “the numbers are all better?”

“Yes, better” the hygienist confirmed.

Unable to contain myself I blurted out “how is this determined from the data?”

To my chagrin, the trio all pointed to the rather large poster in front of me at the end of the dental chair just beyond my feet:

The chart has an image of the periodontal probe I was shown with its graduated dark and light bands. It has a chart, in millimeters, of the depths that are considered healthy in green (1-3 mm), yellow for a depth that will illicit concern (4 mm), and red for a value of 5 mm and beyond.

The simplicity and ease of this measurement had an elegant satisfying feeling. I wish I encountered more situations like this in the US.

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The Metric Maven has published a new book titled The Dimensions of The Cosmos. It examines the basic quantities of the world from yocto to Yotta with a mixture of scientific anecdotes and may be purchased here.