It is not easy to organize a successful party. Food, drinks and recorded music are fun, but since there are quite a lot of occasions to celebrate throughout the year, thrown repeatedly such parties soon get boring.

The following four-article series was published in a newsletter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). It serves as an introduction to the recent analysis discipline known as the finite element method. The author is an engineering consultant and expert witness specializing in finite element analysis.