The scale of a chemical process refers to the rough ranges in mass or volume of a chemical reaction or process that define the appropriate category of chemical apparatus and equipment required to accomplish it, and the concepts, priorities, and economies that operate at each. While the specific terms used—and limits of mass or volume that apply to them—can vary between specific industries, the concepts are used broadly across industry and the fundamental scientific fields that support them. Use of the term "scale" is unrelated to the concept of weighing; rather it is related to cognate terms in mathematics (e.g., geometric scaling, the linear transformation that enlarges or shrinks objects, and scale parameters in probability theory), and in applied areas (e.g., in the scaling of images in architecture, engineering, cartography, etc.).
