More scilab help. Actually the online help for `dot' and `star' gives
more details

If one excutes:

	a=0:5
	a*a

In scilab (or other matlab clones) expecting the answer
 ans  =
 
    0.    1.    4.    9.    16.    25.  

But instead one gets the following error message
-->a*a
    !--error 10 
inconsistent multiplication


What just happened and how do you fix it? What happened is scilab
reserves `*' for matrix multiplication and you cannot multiply
a 1x6 matrix by a 1x6 matrix. [Try the 6x1 multipled by 1x6 a'*a 
or the 1x6 multipled by 6x1  a*a'].

The fix is to use elementwise multiplication which is .* ; that
is a .* a gives the expected answer. There is also an elementwise .^
compare (with b=[0 1; 2 3])  b*b  vs b.*b vs b^2  vs b.^2

diary:
 
-->a=0:5
 a  =
 
    0.    1.    2.    3.    4.    5.  
 
-->a*a
    !--error 10 
inconsistent multiplication
 
 
-->a.*a
 ans  =
 
    0.    1.    4.    9.    16.    25.  
 
-->a'
 ans  =
 
    0.  
    1.  
    2.  
    3.  
    4.  
    5.  
 
-->a'*a
 ans  =
 
    0.    0.    0.     0.     0.     0.   
    0.    1.    2.     3.     4.     5.   
    0.    2.    4.     6.     8.     10.  
    0.    3.    6.     9.     12.    15.  
    0.    4.    8.     12.    16.    20.  
    0.    5.    10.    15.    20.    25.  
 
-->a*a'
 ans  =
 
    55.  
 
-->b=[0 1; 2 3]
 b  =
 
    0.    1.  
    2.    3.  
 
-->b*b
 ans  =
 
    2.    3.   
    6.    11.  
 
-->b.*b
 ans  =
 
    0.    1.  
    4.    9.  
 
-->b^2
 ans  =
 
    2.    3.   
    6.    11.  
 
-->b.^2
 ans  =
 
    0.    1.  
    4.    9.