52 SHADES OF WHITE

     With apologies to those in the know, your scribe must give a brief explanation of optics. My bona fides on this subject  are questionable. Optics is the science of light.
For this explanation we will refer only to sunlight.

     The light from the sun covers the entire spectrum of visible light from infra-red to
ultra-violet. This spectrum can be seen commonly in rainbows or when viewed through
a prism. In these cases the visible spectrum is separated in all the basic colors (6, I think). When this sunlight shines on an object,  some or all parts of the spectrum may be absorbed by the object. If all the light is absorbed the object appears black and the absorbed rays are converted to heat. If none of the rays are absorbed the object will appear white. Combinations of the unabsorbed colors are the various shades of all the different colors which we see.

     This subject has been brought to my mind by the fairly recent fad of teeth whitening.
Normally the human tooth comes in quite a variety of basically white colors. They may have touches of yellow or brown and up to a point this is quite natural. Some teeth may become discolored by neglect or peculiar habits. An excess of yellow or brown or
green( ugh ) can be hideous. Cleansing or bleaching in some cases may be in order.
However, the tooth whitening fad, as practiced  by vain people is often excessive.The teeth are rendered a perfect white. The only perfect white that I can think of would be
seen on most toilets. A perfectly white smile reminds me of a row of miniature toilets.
Very unnatural. Very unattractive.