Where does trap collide?

An ion trap is an arrangement of electric and magnetic fields that holds one or more charged particles in a small region of space so they can be stored, cooled, and studied. Paul and Steinwedel's 1953 Ein neues Massenspektrometer ohne Magnetfeld introduced the radio-frequency quadrupole principle behind the device now called the Paul trap, and Paul's 1990 Nobel review Electromagnetic traps for charged and neutral particles set out the family of such traps and their uses. The referent is a physical container made of fields that confines matter, not a low-interest-rate condition in an economy, a misleading habitat, or a control transfer in software.[1][2]

Unit

A field configuration that confines one or more charged particles, described by its trapping frequency and depth

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Characterised by the depth of the confining potential, the particles' secular frequency, and how long they remain stored

An ecological trap occurs when an animal prefers a habitat that has become poor for its survival or reproduction, because the environmental cues it once relied on to judge quality no longer track the real outcome. Dwernychuk and Boag's 1972 study of ducks nesting among gulls named the idea after finding the birds drawn to sites where gull predation cut their nesting success, and Schlaepfer, Runge, and Sherman's 2002 Ecological and evolutionary traps gave the general framework. The referent is a mismatch between an animal's habitat choice and its fitness, not a monetary condition, a device that confines particles, or a control transfer in a computer.[3][4]

Unit

A habitat an animal prefers even though it lowers the animal's survival or reproduction

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Detected by comparing preference for a habitat against the fitness animals actually achieve there, relative to alternatives

A trap is a synchronous interrupt raised by the processor while an instruction is executing, which immediately transfers control to a handler in the operating system. It is caused by the running program itself, whether by an error such as dividing by zero or by a deliberate request for a system service. Silberschatz, Galvin, and Gagne's Operating System Concepts defines it as a software-generated interrupt caused either by an error or by a specific request from a user program, distinguishing it from an interrupt, which arrives asynchronously from hardware. The referent is an event and control transfer inside a computer, not a monetary condition, a device that confines particles, or a habitat that misleads an animal.[5]

Unit

A single synchronous exception event that transfers control to a supervisor handler

Recovery means

The handler services the cause and may resume the interrupted program at or after the trapping instruction

Measured by

Identified by its trap type or vector and dispatched through the operating system's trap or exception table