Within the well‐known and highly effective finite element method for the computation of approximate solutions of complex boundary value problems, we focus on the often‐called
mixed finite element methods
, where in our terminology the word “mixed” indicates the fact that the problem discretization typically results in a linear algebraic system characterized by a null matrix on the main diagonal.
Accordingly, the goals of the present article are (i) to sketch out that several physical problems share such an algebraic structure once a discretization is introduced; (ii) to present a simple, algebraic version of the abstract theory that rules most applications of mixed finite element methods; (iii) to give several examples of efficient mixed finite element methods; and (iv) finally, to give some hints on how to perform a stability and error analysis, focusing on a representative problem.