## 6.3.7 Vectors versus lists

Vectors are similar to lists, except that all of their elements must be real numbers, and that all of the elements of any given vector must share common physical dimensions. Vectors are stored much more efficiently in memory than lists, since information about the types and physical units of each of the elements need not be stored. In addition they support a wide range of vector and matrix arithmetic operations.

Data from lists can also be plotted onto graphs, but the list must first be converted into a vector. See 6.5 for more information.