Is it desirable that numpy.corrcoef for two arrays returns a 2x2 array rather than a scalar In [10]: npy.corrcoef(npy.random.rand(10), npy.random.rand(10)) Out[10]: array([[ 1. , -0.16088728], [-0.16088728, 1. ]]) I always end up extracting the 0,1 element anyway. What is the advantage, aside from backwards compatibility, for returning a 2x2? JDH