What happens when you enforce scalar context on a compile-time-known list:

my $number = scalar(1, 2, 3, 8, 16);
print "Result: $number\n";
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Result: 16

On an interpolated list:

my $number = scalar (1 .. 10);
print "Result: $number\n";
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Result: (yes, blank)

perlfaq4 also says that there's no such thing as a list in scalar context.