# Orthonormalized Bernstein polynomials using Gram-Schmidt

I was wondering, before trying to do that myself, has anyone attempted to do orthonormalization of Bernstein polynomials using Gram-Schmidt?

I discussed this with several people and have been told that Bernstein polynomials don't make a good basis for FEM because they are not orthogonal.

I didn't use FEM, instead I made a (pseudospectral-like) collocation method formulation, and documented my attempts to solve elliptic problems in 2D domains in an arXiv article. I had exponential convergence with polynomial orders $n<20$. After that approximation become worse as $n$ was increased. One of the reasons may be non-orthogonality of Bernstein polynomial basis functions.

The code discussed is here.

My idea is to make a new orthogonal basis using Gram-Schmidt and try again.

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This isn't exactly what you asked, but maybe this paper is helpful. –  Christian Clason Nov 28 '12 at 18:12
Not bad, not bad at all :) Thanks! –  Johntra Volta Nov 28 '12 at 18:18
@ChristianClason - That's an answer, as far as I'm concerned, feel free to move it out of comments, and perhaps paste the abstract in to your answer. –  Aron Ahmadia Nov 28 '12 at 22:23