Uniform norm bound for B-spline orthogonal projection ($\Vert P_{\mathcal{S}}{\Vert }_{\infty }\le \Vert G^{-1}{\Vert }_{{\ell }^{\infty }}$)

Let nonnegative partition-normalized B-splines $N_i$ form a basis, with ${\sum }_i{N}_i\le 1$ on the integration interval and $d_i=\int N_i>0$. The row-normalized mixed Gram matrix is $G_{ij}=\int N_i{N}_j/d_i$. The normal equations for the orthogonal projection onto their linear span become $Ga=b$, with $b_i=\int f{N}_i/d_i$ and $\Vert b{\Vert }_{{\ell }^{\infty }}\le \Vert f{\Vert }_{\infty }$. The subpartition of unity for B-splines gives $\Vert {\sum }_i{a}_i{N}_i{\Vert }_{\infty }\le \Vert a{\Vert }_{{\ell }^{\infty }}$ and proves the bound. The ordinary symmetric Gram matrix omits this essential row normalization. The projection maps continuous functions into the spline space, not onto all continuous functions.