# reference (citation)

a link that connects to a place where information can be found

- Computed level: L13 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: reference  ·  Arena: reference.word

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [links](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-links.connection), [index](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-index.reference), [information](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-information.knowledge), [connects](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-connects.verb), [space](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-space.extent)

**Through:** the connection bridges a reference and a location in space, enabling access to information

**Novel properties:**
- directional access
- persistent location binding
- cross-context reference

## Examples
- The 2017 Unicode Standard, version 10.0, assigns code point U+1F600 to the grinning face emoji. *(computing)*
- Darwin cited Malthus’s 1798 Essay on the Principle of Population in his 1859 On the Origin of Species. *(science)*
- The US Supreme Court’s 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision was cited in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). *(law)*

## Used by
- [the three tiers](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-the-three-tiers.structure) (L19)

---
*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-reference.citation*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-reference.citation.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*