How to determine number values for each shade of color for design system? [migrated]

I'm curious as to how all of the design systems determine their shades of colors and assign numbers to them. Take the material design color palette for example. If you look at the "Red" column...how do you get those numeric values for each shade? Is there a technical way of determining that?

IE: Main red is 500, lightest is 50, next darkest is 100, next darkest is 200, etc.