An automatic memory management process that identifies and frees memory that is no longer being used by a program. Garbage collection prevents memory leaks by reclaiming memory from objects that are no longer reachable.
The term 'garbage collection' was coined by John McCarthy in 1959 for the Lisp programming language, using the metaphor of collecting and disposing of unwanted items (garbage) to describe reclaiming unused memory.
Garbage collection is like having an invisible housekeeper for your computer's memory - it quietly goes around cleaning up objects you're no longer using, so you don't have to remember to throw everything away yourself! Without it, programs would eventually run out of memory like a hoarder's house running out of space.
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