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So it tries to do a matrix multiplication with α. It'll of course hiss and stamp its feet in complaint when it tries to multiply a 1x2 matrix with itself. But we are not looking for a matrix multiplication. We'd like each element to be raised to the given power viz.

Note that this is achieved by preceding the ^ operator with the period character (.). The period character can be used with other arithmetic operators such as * and /. Chew over this as it is a subtle but powerful feature. For more info, see

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