thumb|Articulator thumb|Semi-adjustable articulator with mounted casts An articulator is a mechanical hinged device used in dentistry to which plaster casts of the maxillary (upper) and mandibular (lower) jaw are fixed, reproducing some or all the movements of the mandible in relation to the maxilla. The human maxilla is fixed and the scope of movement of the mandible (and therefore the dentition) is dictated by the position and movements of the bilateral temperomandibular joints, which sit in the glenoid fossae in the base of the skull. The temperomandibular joints are not a simple hinge but
thumb|Articulator thumb|Semi-adjustable articulator with mounted casts An articulator is a mechanical hinged device used in dentistry to which plaster casts of the maxillary (upper) and mandibular (lower) jaw are fixed, reproducing some or all the movements of the mandible in relation to the maxilla. The human maxilla is fixed and the scope of movement of the mandible (and therefore the dentition) is dictated by the position and movements of the bilateral temperomandibular joints, which sit in the glenoid fossae in the base of the skull. The temperomandibular joints are not a simple hinge but rotate and translate forward when the mouth is opened.
The principal movements reproduced are: at rest (centric jaw relation), in protrusion (to bite), from side to side (lateral excursion) to chew, in retrusion, and any possible combination of these. Counter-intuitively, it is the cast of the maxilla which moves relative to the cast of the mandible and the articulator.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).