Process

A process is a naturally occurring or designed sequence of operations which produces some outcome. Compare: project. See also: process management.

Table of contents

1 Examples 2 References 3 External links

Examples

• The Bessemer process is a way of producing steel.
• The process of mining extracts ore.
• Evolution is a natural process which explains the origin of species.
• The creation of the universe by God would be an example of a divine process.

In philosophy and systems theory, basic processes or logical homologies as they were termed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy are unifying principles which operate in many different systemic contexts. For example, feedback, the principle which figures prominently in the science of cybernetics. Natural and industrial processes utilize basic processes such as feedback.

References

• Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory, George Braziller, New York, 1968, pages 84,85 ISBN 0807604534

• Article defining process in Principia Cybernetica Web

In computing, a computer process is a running instance of a program, including all variables and other states. A multitasking operating system switches between processes to give the appearance of simultaneous execution, though in fact only one process can be executing per CPU core.