This is addressed in the proposal: Use a second type that defines __mul__ as matrix multiplication: As discussed above (Background: What's wrong with the stat

This is addressed in the proposal: Use a second type that defines __mul__ as matrix multiplication: As discussed above (Background: What's wrong with the status quo?), this has been tried this for many years via the numpy.matrix type (and its predecessors in Numeric and numarray). The result is a strong consensus among both numpy developers and developers of downstream packages that numpy.matrix should essentially never be used, because of the problems caused by having conflicting duck types for arrays. (Of course one could then argue we should only define __mul__ to be matrix multiplication, but then we'd have the same problem with elementwise multiplication.) There have been several pushes to remove numpy.matrix entirely; the only counter-arguments have come from educators who find that its problems are outweighed by the need to provide a simple and clear mapping between mathematical notation and code for novices (see Transparent syntax is especially crucial for non-expert programmers). But, of course, starting out newbies with a dispreferred syntax and then expecting them to transition later causes its own problems. The two-type solution is worse than the disease.