Meaning of load average in uptime

[ran_sushmi]

I had a doubt with the meaning of the feature load average in uptime command. When, I give the command uptime on my server,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[oracle@JispNewDB dbs]$ uptime
12:16:59 up 5 days, 25 min, 2 users, load average: 5.59, 5.72, 5.02
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the values seen here like 5.59, 5.72, 5.02. What does it actually mean as it is not a % and the value should not be more than 1 in that case.

I hope, my question is clear.

Please, help in solving the doubt.

regards

[devils casper]

Hi !

Check this wiki on Load ( Computing ).