On the \(L_\infty\)-norm of the orthogonal projector onto splines. A short proof of A. Shadrin's theorem (Q2441943)

A celebrated conjecture (and for a long time remaining just a conjecture) of Carl de Boor stated that there is a uniform (\(L^\infty\)) bound for the norm of the orthogonal projector from the space of all bounded piecewise continuous real-valued functions defined on an interval \([a,b]\) onto univariate polynomial spline spaces, the constant in the bound depending only on the degree of the splines. This conjecture was established in 2001 as a theorem by Shadrin, albeit with a long and highly technical proof. In this article, v. Golitschek presents a much shorter and less technical proof for the exactly same result. A certain spline construction of a spline called \(\phi\) is used from Shadrin's work, but otherwise the arguments of the present author are independent.