What is a monitor ?

From: Razvan (mihai11_at_mailcity.com)
Date: 08/31/04 

Date: 31 Aug 2004 08:03:31 -0700

Hi !

        Somebody asked me today what is a monitor. I said that it is some
piece of code that manages the locking mechanism and that it should
not be concerned about it because the monitor mechanism is implemented
in Java by default.
        Can somebody give a more academic/corect definition ?

Regards,
Razvan