Sarrus' Quilt: A Novel Way to Compute Determinants
General Mathematics
2025-08-19 v1
Abstract
After analyzing the 4x4 determinant of a matrix, a shortcut was obtained to find such a determinant. Similarly to the Sarrus method for 2x2 or 3x3 determinants, the method consists of laying 19 columns of size 4 each and adding and subtracting some diagonal multiplications. There is a symmetry in the arrangement of these columns. A very symmetric pattern emerged for the 5x5 determinant which was also found. A cyclic pattern was observed for the diagonals of larger determinants when applying this method.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2508.11642,
title = {Sarrus' Quilt: A Novel Way to Compute Determinants},
author = {Jorge Garcia and Jasmine Torres and Thomas Crawford and Miles Obrien and Alexander D. Bonilla},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.11642},
year = {2025}
}