I'll modify the example slightly to something which doesn't have a type error: [1,2,'q',[1,('a',2)]] * 4 With element-by-element operations, that would be

I'll modify the example slightly to something which doesn't have a type error: [1,2,'q',[1,('a',2)]] * 4 With element-by-element operations, that would be [1 * 4,2 * 4,'q' * 4,[1,('a',2)] * 4] giving [4, 8, 'qqqq', [1 * 4, ('a', 2) * 4]] applying that again, assuming that tuple * scalar is also applied element-wise gives: [4, 8, 'qqqq', [4, ('a' * 4, 2 * 4)]] and ends up with [4, 8, 'qqqq', [4, ('aaaa', 8)]] I can't think of any case where that's meaningful. Also, what should this do: x = [1] x.append(x) print(x + x) print(x * 4) ? Currently these print: [1, [1, [...]], 1, [1, [...]]] [1, [1, [...]], 1, [1, [...]], 1, [1, [...]], 1, [1, [...]]] because the print function knows how to handle recursive definitions. Do all of the element-wise operations need to handle cyclical cases like this? I think numpy can get away with not worrying about this precisely because, as wodenokoto pointed out, it can assume a flat structure.