Ruby - Why a can't be modified after freeze, but can be reassigned?

Question

This will compile and outputs "1 2":

a = [1,2,3]
a.freeze
a = [1,2]
puts a

Answer 1

Yes because you are creating a new object with the reference 'a'. The old 'a' is lost now. Isn't this concept almost the same in most of the languages?

You can verify it. I did a little research.

a = [1,2,3]
puts a.object_id #60
a.freeze
a = [1,2]
puts a.object_id #80

Answer 2

The freeze method is applied to an object reference, not a variable! This means that any operation that creates a new object will succeed.