Title
Strassen's 2x2 matrix multiplication algorithm: A conceptual perspective.
Abstract
The main purpose of this paper is pedagogical. Despite its importance, all proofs of the correctness of Strassen’s famous 1969 algorithm to multiply two $$2 \times 2$$ matrices with only seven multiplications involve some basis-dependent calculations such as explicitly multiplying specific $$2 \times 2$$ matrices, expanding expressions to cancel terms with opposing signs, or expanding tensors over the standard basis, sometimes involving clever simplifications using the sparsity of tensor summands. This makes the proof nontrivial to memorize and many presentations of the proof avoid showing all the details and leave a significant amount of verifications to the reader. In this note we give a short, self-contained, basis-independent proof of the existence of Strassen’s algorithm that avoids these types of calculations. We achieve this by focusing on symmetries and algebraic properties. Our proof can be seen as a coordinate-free version of the construction of Clausen from 1988, combined with recent work on the geometry of Strassen’s algorithm by Chiantini, Ikenmeyer, Landsberg, and Ottaviani from 2016.
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1007/s11565-019-00318-1
ANNALI DELL'UNIVERSITA' DI FERRARA
Keywords
Field
DocType
Matrix multiplication, Strassen’s algorithm, Coordinate-free, Elementary, 68W30 Symbolic computation and algebraic computation
Discrete mathematics,Standard basis,Combinatorics,Expression (mathematics),Coppersmith–Winograd algorithm,Matrix (mathematics),Computer science,Correctness,Mathematical proof,Strassen algorithm,Matrix multiplication
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
65
2
0430-3202
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
6
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Christian Ikenmeyer100.68
Vladimir Lysikov212.40