Welcome to your first exploration of data in MATLAB! This tutorial will guide you through the fundamental skills of creating and working with MATLAB’s core data structures. Understanding these building blocks is the most important step on your journey to mastering this powerful tool.

The single most important concept to grasp is this: in the MATLAB environment, every variable is an array or a matrix. A single number is a 1×1 array, a list of numbers is a one-dimensional array (a vector), and a grid of numbers is a two-dimensional array (a matrix). This is no accident; the name MATLAB itself stands for “Matrix Laboratory,” and this array-centric design is its defining feature. This design is what makes MATLAB exceptionally powerful because it allows for vectorized operations, which are extremely fast for large datasets as they avoid slow, traditional loops.