 Solution

Take the affine trial space $V_1=\{v\in H^1(a,b):v(a)=1\}$ and the test space $V_0=\{v\in H^1(a,b):v(a)=0\}$. Multiplication by $v\in V_0$ and integration by parts incorporate the right Neumann boundary condition as a load:For the continuous piecewise-quadratic trial space, impose the left value exactly and use the same equation for every piecewise-quadratic test function vanishing at $a$. With a basis $({\psi }_j)$ of that test space and $u_h=1+{\sum }_j{c}_j{\psi }_j$, the finite element equations areThe Endpoint Poincaré inequality, reflected about the interval midpoint, makes the derivative norm a norm on $V_0$. Galerkin orthogonality then gives the exact best-approximation identity: for every admissible $v_h$,Therefore $u_h$ minimizes the derivative error over all admissible piecewise-quadratic functions.

To prove the requested error bound, assume $f\in H^1(a,b)$. Then $u\in H^3(a,b)$ and $u^{\prime \prime \prime }=-f^{\prime }$. We need an elementary Poincare-Wirtinger inequality on each element $I$ of length $h_I$: if $w\in H^1(I)$ has mean zero, its continuous representative has a zero somewhere, and the fundamental theorem of calculus and Cauchy-Schwarz inequality give $\Vert w{\Vert }_{L^2(I)}\le h_I\Vert w^{\prime }{\Vert }_{L^2(I)}$.

Choose an affine function $q_I$ whose slope is the average of $u^{\prime \prime }$ on $I$ and whose average equals the average of $u^{\prime }$. Then $w=u^{\prime }-q_I$ and $w^{\prime }=u^{\prime \prime }-q_I^{\prime }$ both have mean zero. Applying the just-proved bound twice yieldsDefine a quadratic interpolant on $I$ by integrating $q_I$ from the true left-endpoint value. The equal-average condition ensures that it reaches the true right-endpoint value, so these pieces join to an admissible continuous piecewise-quadratic function $I_{h}u$. Sum the squared estimates and use the best-approximation property:Only the maximum element length is used; equal spacing is unnecessary.

For the Aubin–Nitsche duality argument, let $e=u-u_h$ and solve $-z^{\prime \prime }=e$, $z(a)=0$, $z^{\prime }(b)=0$. Explicitly $z^{\prime }(x)={\int }_x^{b}e(t)dt$, so $\Vert z^{\prime \prime }{\Vert }_2=\Vert e{\Vert }_2$. Integration by parts and Galerkin orthogonality givewhere $J_{h}z$ is its nodal piecewise-linear interpolant, which belongs to the quadratic test space. On each element $(J_{h}z{)}^{\prime }$ is the average of $z^{\prime }$, so the same mean-zero inequality gives $\Vert z^{\prime }-(J_{h}z{)}^{\prime }{\Vert }_2\le h\Vert z^{\prime \prime }{\Vert }_2$. Canceling $\Vert e{\Vert }_2$ when nonzero proves the additional order: