Introduction

In the last lecture, two examples were solved using the hat-shaped, piecewise linear basis functions to illustrate the effectiveness of these basis functions in providing a better approximation to the derivatives. Only a few basis functions were used in solving these examples. In this lecture, a general formulation is proposed using (N+1) piecewise linear basis functions. Before that, the basis functions and the corresponding division of the domain into the parts (called as the mesh) are discussed in detail.