Difference between revisions of "3213: Dental Formulas"
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| β | first | + | A {{w|dental formula}} specifies the number of teeth of each type on each side of the jaw, with dots separating the numbers. There are two rows, representing the upper and lower jaw, separated by a horizontal line. The number of incisors is indicated first, canines second, premolars third, and finally molars, so the formula in the comic would represent 3 incisors, 1 canine, 3 premolars, and 1 molar on each side of the upper jaw, and equal numbers in the lower jaw except only 2 premolars. |
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| + | Cueball is (wrongly) treating a dental formula as an arithmetic expression, with the line indicating division. | ||
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
Revision as of 21:43, 27 February 2026
| Dental Formulas |
 Title text: I mean, half of these are undefined. And your multiplication dots are too low; they look like decimal points. |
Explanation
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This is one of 70 incomplete explanations: This page was created recently. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
A dental formula specifies the number of teeth of each type on each side of the jaw, with dots separating the numbers. There are two rows, representing the upper and lower jaw, separated by a horizontal line. The number of incisors is indicated first, canines second, premolars third, and finally molars, so the formula in the comic would represent 3 incisors, 1 canine, 3 premolars, and 1 molar on each side of the upper jaw, and equal numbers in the lower jaw except only 2 premolars.
Cueball is (wrongly) treating a dental formula as an arithmetic expression, with the line indicating division.
Transcript
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This is one of 46 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
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First!AmethystSky14 (talk) 21:43, 27 February 2026 (UTC)
The top left drawing is a tooth. Xkdvd (talk) 22:04, 27 February 2026 (UTC)
This confused me for a long time (partly due to the mammal/mammol thing) - I took them to be dentists. I'm now inferring that the counts are typical of a species rather than descriptive of an individual patient. Maybe the write up could make that more clear in case someone else as dumb as me passes by 2A00:23EE:10C8:110F:D992:D45:1C7A:DF02 guest
- "in case someone as dumb as me passes by" - that would be everyone, see Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb. 64.201.132.210 22:21, 27 February 2026 (UTC)
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