f1"><sup>1</sup></a>, which will eventually resolve to the
return value of the code block (i.e. the last expression) or an error if
the code does not complete executing successfully. The important thing
is that no matter how long the expensive operation takes, these lines
will execute almost instantly, while the operation continues in the
background.</p>
<p>But we know that R is single-threaded, so how does
<code>future</code> accomplish this? The answer: by utilizing another R
process. <code>future</code>