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A visit to my dentist earlier today reminded me that standards are everywhere.

I happened to catch sight of an order that was waiting to be delivered to a dental lab. It said "Please set teeth - shade A3". It's necessary, of course, to have a standard for the color of false teeth so that they can be matched to the remaining real teeth.

People work hard at this stuff. As this research paper explains:

The colors of shade guide teeth were determined using a methodology developed for a reflectance spectrophotometer. The spectral reflectance of each shade tab was measured using a dual-beam spectrophotometer equipped with an integrating sphere and a beam-reducing accessory. Relative reflectance measurements were converted to absolute reflectance. Tristimulus coordinates were determined for each sample by use of the CIE standard observer function and standard illuminant source C. The tristimulus coordinates were then converted to the CIE L*a*b* and Munsell Color Systems.