Chaotic behavior of Newton's method (Q1308852)

The idea of Newton's method is to obtain zeroes of a differentiable function \(f\) as attractors of the function \(N_ f(x)= x- f(x)/f'(x)\). However, even polynomials can have other attractors than these ones. The author deals with the problem what further kinds of attractors the Newton method can yield. The paper exhibits a \(C^ \infty\) function such that the \(\omega\)-limit set of \(N_ f\) includes every nonempty closed subset of Cantor's middle thirds set. Since derivatives need not be continuous, the Newton's method need not be represented by an iteration scheme of a continuous function. Hence the problem leads to the study of possible \(\omega\)-limit sets of a broader class of functions than continuous ones.