5.2.1. Introduction to arrays

While a NumPy array could be seen as an extension of the Python lists list to multiple dimensions, it has fundamental differences which make both types powerful in their own ways. The main differences between both types are:

Lists	Arrays
Are unidimensional. We can use nested lists to simulate multiple dimensions, but these values are harder to access, calculate, reshape, etc.	Can have any number of dimensions; they can represent matrices, or even series of matrices.
Can be a sequence of different types, which makes them very versatile.	Only hold elements of the same type.
Have a dynamic size that can be modified using append, expand and pop.	Cannot “grow” as we do with lists.
Only hold data, they don’t provide methods to compute data.	Can be used directly for calculations such as linear algebra, filtering, etc.

Lists and arrays can be converted one to the other, as we will see in Creating arrays from lists.