TOOTH RECONSTRUCTION...

Today I experienced another application of mathematics. I had a dentist appointment, as a follow-up to my wisdom tooth extractions in August. Although they also pulled one of the teeth in front of a wisdom tooth (on the left side), they left the one in on the right side, despite it having a HUGE cavity on the back. The dentist had said they would have to do CEREC, which meant nothing to me. (It's actually an acronym, check out http://www.cereconline.com/ for more information.)

After injecting me with "numb-stuff", and drilling for quite a while (isn't that sound tremendous, even when you can't feel it?), the dentist then took a digital picture of what was left of my tooth. His computer then calculated (from a template based on that particular tooth) what was missing, and designed (in 3-D) an implant on the screen - all done using mathematics, of course. Then a block of ceramic material was put in the mill, and the image was sent to the mill (kind of like sending a print job from your computer to your printer), and the mill poceeded to grind down the piece of ceramic until the chunk that was left would fit in perfectly to fill out my tooth!

Once they glued it in, they did a little grinding and buffing of the edges, and then I left. The whole thing took about an hour and a half, and cost me less than $300. Now that my tongue is not numb anymore, I can feel a couple of sharp spots, so I may have to go back for some more finishing work, but I now have a whole tooth again, or kind of....