ENCODING METHOD TO ENABLE VECTORS AND MATRICES TO BE ELEMENTS OF VECTORS AND MATRICES

A method and system for encoding nested matrices and vectors. The system can be used in a live mathematical document program executed on a computer processor. The mathematical document program stores elements of matrices in contiguous memory locations in a primary memory as floating point numbers. Each scalar element is stored as a floating point number. Each matrix element is stored as a two part combination such that the two part combination occupies no more memory space than each scalar element, The first part of the two part combination including a code to indicate that the entry is a symbolic entity and the second part of the two part combination includes a pointer to a memory location storing elements of the matrix element. The scalar elements and the two part combinations are stored in contiguous memory locations in primary memory.