[MarkusQ]

You are misreading the article. At a guess, you have come into it "knowing what a vector is" from physics or computer science. Specifically, a vector is not "a sequence of reals", it is any object that obeys a certain set of properties. He is not "extending" your definition, he's trying to teach you the actual definition, which is more general than the examples you are used to.

(Imagine/remember what it feels like when children first learn that the integers aren't the only number, there are also fractions, then irrationals, then complex numbers...this is a very similar situation).

With that in mind, you may want to reread the text and pay attention to the definitions he is using, and not assume that your definitions are the whole story.

[ttoinou]

I learned vector spaces in maths and I'm aware of your definition, that's how I learned it. I'm also aware that the same word can be used with different meanings depending on the context.

  (Imagine/remember what it feels like when children first learn that the integers aren't the only number, there are also fractions, then irrationals, then complex numbers...this is a very similar situation).

Imagine now an article saying "complex numbers are just natural numbers, you can apply euclidean division to them the exact same way"