Construct · 2 fields · 2 citations
One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.
● jingle · one word, two constructs Nearest construct by meaningmantlecompare the meaningsEvery construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to shell is mantle.
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In the Bohr model of the atom, a shell is a group of electrons occupying one allowed, quantized energy level around the nucleus. Bohr introduced the idea in 1913 to explain why atoms emit light at fixed wavelengths: an electron jumps between shells and the energy gap sets the colour. The referent is a quantized energy level, not a material object, and it is inferred from spectral lines rather than seen. It shares the word shell with a protective covering and a command-line program, but here the shell is an abstraction inside a model of the atom, measured in electron-volts.[1]
A shell company is a business that exists only on paper: it is registered, with owners, an address, and perhaps a bank account, but has no significant operations, employees, or trade. Findley, Nielson, and Sharman showed in Global Shell Games in 2014 how easily such entities are formed and used to hold assets or hide who controls them. The referent is a legal entity, and what defines it is emptiness: the corporate form is real but the activity inside is not. It inverts the other meanings, where the shell surrounds something real; here the shell is the whole of the thing.[2]
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