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It is said that when we have a class Point and knows how to perform point * 3 like the following: class Point def initialize(x,y) @x, @y = x, y end def *(c) Point.new(@x * c, @y * c) end end point = Point.new(1,2) p point p point * 3 Output: #<Point:0x336094 @x=1, @y=2> #<Point:0x335fa4 @x=3, @y=6> but then, 3 * point is not understood: Point can't be coerced into Fixnum ( TypeError ) So we need to further define an instance method coerce : class Point def coerce(something) [self, something] end end p 3 * point Output: #<Point:0x3c45a88 @x=3, @y=6> So it is said that 3 * point is the same as 3.*(point) . That is, the instance method * takes an argument point and invoke on the object 3 . Now, since this method * doesn't know how to multiply a point, so point.coerce(3) will be called, and get back an array: [point, 3] and then * is once again applied to it, is that true? Now, this is understood and we now have a new Point object, as performed by the instance method * of the Point class. The question is: Who invokes point.coerce(3) ? Is it Ruby automatically, or is it some code inside of * method of Fixnum by catching an exception? Or is it by case statement that when it doesn't know one of the known types, then call coerce ? Does coerce always need to return an array of 2 elements? Can it be no array? Or can i

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