Final answer:
Scalar operations process a single piece of data at a time, whereas register reads involve reading data from CPU registers; they are not synonymous but related concepts in the context of CPU operations.
Step-by-step explanation:
The terms scalar and register read operations in computing are not exactly synonymous. Scalar operations involve processing a single value at a time within a processor, while register read operations specifically refer to the act of reading data from processor registers. An operation in a CPU can often be scalar but does not necessarily mean reading from a register, as it could be writing or performing some arithmetic operations, for instance.
On the other hand, registers are specific storage locations within the CPU that are highly optimized for speed. When data is needed for computation, it is read from these registers. It is worth noting that modern processors feature vector operations (also known as SIMD operations) which can process multiple pieces of data simultaneously, in contrast to scalar operations.