A false bottom (or false back) is an internal partition in a

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

, typically at the bottom of a

drawer A drawer is a box-shaped container inside a piece of furniture that can be pulled out horizontally to access its contents. Drawers are built into numerous types of furniture, including cabinetry, cabinets, Chest of drawers, chests of drawers ...

, suitcase or similar item, enabling the concealment of objects from a cursory examination of the item's contents. A false bottom may be present if the internal

dimensions In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coordina ...

of a container do not match its external dimensions after taking into account the thicknesses of

constituent Constituent or constituency may refer to: Politics * An individual voter within an electoral district, state, community, or organization * Advocacy group or constituency * Constituent assembly * Constituencies of Namibia Other meanings * Const ...

materials and

structures A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...

used to build the object. The term false bottom can also refer to the

deep scattering layer The deep scattering layer, sometimes referred to as the sound scattering layer, is a layer in the ocean consisting of a variety of marine animals. It was discovered through the use of sonar, as ships found a layer that scattered the sound and w ...

in the ocean, a phenomenon where a layer of marine organisms deep in the ocean can be mistaken by

sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigation, navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect o ...

for the

seabed The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

.Hersey JB and Backus RH (2005
"Sound Scattering by Marine Organisms"
In: M. N. Hill and A. R. Robinson (Eds)''Physical Oceanography'', Page 499, Harvard University Press. .

References

Cabinets (furniture) Secrecy {{Furniture-stub

See also

References