title: What does dtype=object mean while creating a numpy array?
body: <p>I was experimenting with numpy arrays and created a numpy array of strings:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ar1 = np.array(['avinash', 'jay'])
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>As I have read from from their official guide, operations on numpy array are propagated to individual elements. So I did this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ar1 * 2
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But then I get this error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>TypeError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
  &lt;ipython-input-22-aaac6331c572&gt; in &lt;module&gt;()
  ----&gt; 1 ar1 * 2
  
  TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for *: 'numpy.ndarray' and 'int'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But when I used <code>dtype=object</code> </p>
  
  <pre><code>ar1 = np.array(['avinash', 'jay'], dtype=object)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>while creating the array I am able to do all operations.</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone tell me why this is happening?</p>