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A symmetric coercive bilinear form $a$ defines the energy norm $\Vert v{\Vert }_a=\sqrt{a(v,v)}$. In this norm the Ritz method is an orthogonal projection onto its finite-dimensional trial space.

Assume $p\in L^{\infty }(-1,1)$ with $p(x)\ge p_0>0$, $q\in L^{\infty }(-1,1)$ with $q\ge 0$, and $f\in L^2(-1,1)$. The natural energy space is the Sobolev space $V=H_0^1(-1,1)$. Multiplyingby $v\in V$ and using integration by parts gives the weak formulationwhereThe form is bounded, and the Poincare inequality together with $p\ge p_0$ makes it coercive:The functional $\ell$ is bounded by the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. The Lax-Milgram theorem therefore gives a unique weak solution.

Define the energyIf $y$ is the weak solution, then for every $w\in V$,Thus $y$ is the unique minimizer of $J$. Conversely, differentiating $J(y+tw)$ at $t=0$ recovers $a(y,w)=\ell (w)$, so the minimization and weak problems are equivalent.

The Ritz method chooses a finite-dimensional conforming space $V_h\subset V$ and minimizes $J$ over $V_h$. Its minimizer $y_h$ satisfiesFor a basis $\{{\varphi }_j\}$ this becomes $Kc=F$, withCoercivity makes the stiffness matrix $K$ symmetric positive definite, so the discrete minimizer exists and is unique.

Subtracting the continuous and discrete equations gives Galerkin orthogonality,In the energy norm $\Vert v{\Vert }_a=\sqrt{a(v,v)}$, for any $v_h\in V_h$,After cancellation and minimization over $v_h$, this proves the sharp symmetric form of the Céa lemma:

For a mesh $-1=x_0<x_1<\cdots <x_N=1$, take $V_h$ to be the continuous functions that are affine on each interval and vanish at the endpoints. The interior piecewise-linear hat functions form a basis, and each overlaps only its two neighbours, so $K$ is symmetric tridiagonal. In the illustrative case $p=1$ and $q=0$ on a uniform mesh, its diagonal and neighbouring entries areIf $y\in H^2(-1,1)$, its nodal interpolant $I_{h}y\in V_h$ satisfies $\Vert y-I_{h}y{\Vert }_{H^1}=O(h)$. The best-approximation estimate therefore gives $\Vert y-y_h{\Vert }_{H^1}=O(h)$, and a standard duality argument improves the $L^2$ error to $O(h^2)$ under the corresponding elliptic regularity. This completes the route from the boundary-value problem through its variational principle to a sparse, stable finite-element approximation.

Choose a mesh of $[-1,1]$ and the conforming space of Cubic Hermite finite elements: piecewise cubic functions that are globally $C^1$ and satisfy $v(\pm 1)=v^{\prime }(\pm 1)=0$. Let ${\varphi }_1,\dots ,{\varphi }_n$ be its nodal value-and-slope basis. For $u_n={\sum }_k{a}_k{\varphi }_k$, the Ritz method imposesHence the coefficient vector solvesThe stiffness matrix is symmetric positive definite by part a.