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The Newton fractal is a boundary set in the complex plane which is characterized by Newton's method applied to a fixed polynomial $p (z) \in$ $\mathbb {C}$ $[z]$ or transcendental function. It is the Julia set of the meromorphic function $z \mapsto z - p (z) / p' (z)$ which is given by Newton's method. When there are no attractive cycles (of order greater than 1), it divides the complex plane into regions $G k$ , each of which is associated with a root $ζ k$ of the polynomial, $k = 1, \dots, deg(p)$ . In this way the Newton fractal is similar to the Mandelbrot set, and like other fractals it exhibits an intricate appearance arising from a simple description. It is relevant to numerical analysis because it shows that (outside the region of quadratic convergence) the Newton method can be very sensitive to its choice of start point.

Almost all points of the complex plane are associated with one of the $deg(p)$ roots of a given polynomial in the following way: the point is used as starting value $z 0$ for Newton's iteration $z n + 1 := z n - p (z n) / p' (z n)$ , yielding a sequence of points $z 1, z 2, \dots,$ If the sequence converges to the root $ζ k$ , then $z 0$ was an element of the region $G k$ . However, for every polynomial of degree at least 2 there are points for which the Newton iteration does not converge to any root: examples are the boundaries of the basins of attraction of the various roots. There are even polynomials for which open sets of starting points fail to converge to any root: a simple example is $z 3 - 2 z + 2$ , where some points are attracted by the cycle $0, 1, 0, 1\dots$ rather than by a root.

An open set for which the iterations converge towards a given root or cycle (that is not a fixed point), is a Fatou set for the iteration. The complementary set to the union of all these, is the Julia set. The Fatou sets have common boundary, namely the Julia set. Therefore, each point of the Julia set is a point of accumulation for each of the Fatou sets. It is this property that causes the fractal structure of the Julia set (when the degree of the polynomial is larger than 2).

To plot images of the fractal, one may first choose a specified number $d$ of complex points $(ζ 1, \dots, ζ d)$ and compute the coefficients $(p 1, \dots, p d)$ of the polynomial

p(z)=z^{d}+p_{1}z^{d-1}+\cdots +p_{d-1}z+p_{d}:=(z-\zeta _{1})(z-\zeta _{2})\cdots (z-\zeta _{d})

.

Then for a rectangular lattice

z_{mn}=z_{00}+m\,\Delta x+in\,\Delta y;\quad m=0,\ldots ,M-1;\quad n=0,\ldots ,N-1

of points in $\mathbb {C}$ , one finds the index $k (m, n)$ of the corresponding root $ζ k (m, n)$ and uses this to fill an $M \times N$ raster grid by assigning to each point $(m, n)$ a color $f k (m, n)$ . Additionally or alternatively the colors may be dependent on the distance $D (m, n)$ , which is defined to be the first value $D$ such that $| z D - ζ k (m, n) | < ε$ for some previously fixed small $ε > 0$ .

Generalization of Newton fractals

A generalization of Newton's iteration is

z_{n+1}=z_{n}-a{\frac {p(z_{n})}{p'(z_{n})}}

where $a$ is any complex number.^[1] The special choice $a = 1$ corresponds to the Newton fractal. The fixed points of this map are stable when $a$ lies inside the disk of radius 1 centered at 1. When $a$ is outside this disk, the fixed points are locally unstable, however the map still exhibits a fractal structure in the sense of Julia set. If $p$ is a polynomial of degree $d$ , then the sequence $z n$ is bounded provided that $a$ is inside a disk of radius $d$ centered at $d$ .

More generally, Newton's fractal is a special case of a Julia set.

$Newton fractal for three degree-3 roots p(z) = z3 − 1, coloured by number of iterations required$

Newton fractal for three degree-3 roots $p (z) = z 3 - 1$ , coloured by number of iterations required
$Newton fractal for three degree-3 roots p(z) = z3 − 1, coloured by root reached$

Newton fractal for three degree-3 roots $p (z) = z 3 - 1$ , coloured by root reached
$Newton fractal for p(z) = z3 − 2z + 2. Points in the red basins do not reach a root.$

Newton fractal for $p (z) = z 3 - 2 z + 2$ . Points in the red basins do not reach a root.
$Newton fractal for a 7th order polynomial, colored by root reached and shaded by rate of convergence.$

Newton fractal for a 7th order polynomial, colored by root reached and shaded by rate of convergence.
$Newton fractal for p(z) = z8 + 15z4 − 16$

Newton fractal for $p (z) = z 8 + 15 z 4 - 16$
$Newton fractal for p(z) = z5 − 3iz3 − (5 + 2i)z2 + 3z + 1, coloured by root reached, shaded by number of iterations required.$

Newton fractal for $p (z) = z 5 - 3 iz 3 - (5 + 2 i) z 2 + 3 z + 1$ , coloured by root reached, shaded by number of iterations required.
$Newton fractal for p(z) = sin z, coloured by root reached, shaded by number of iterations required$

Newton fractal for $p (z) = sin z$ , coloured by root reached, shaded by number of iterations required
$Another Newton fractal for p(z) = sin z$

Another Newton fractal for $p (z) = sin z$
$Generalized Newton fractal for p(z) = z3 − 1, a = −1/2. The colour was chosen based on the argument after 40 iterations.$

Generalized Newton fractal for $p (z) = z 3 - 1$ , $a = - 1 / 2$ . The colour was chosen based on the argument after 40 iterations.
$Generalized Newton fractal for p(z) = z2 − 1, a = 1 + i.$

Generalized Newton fractal for $p (z) = z 2 - 1$ , $a = 1 + i$ .
$Generalized Newton fractal for p(z) = z3 − 1, a = 2.$

Generalized Newton fractal for $p (z) = z 3 - 1$ , $a = 2$ .
$Generalized Newton fractal for p(z) = z4 + 3i − 1, a = 2.1.$

Generalized Newton fractal for $p (z) = z 4 + 3 i - 1$ , $a = 2.1$ .
$p (z) = z 6 + z 3 - 1$
$p (z) = sin z - 1$
$p (z) = sin z - 1$
$p (z) = cosh z - 1$
$p (z) = cosh z - 1$
$p (z) = z 20 - 2 z + 2$

Serie : $p (z) = z n - 1$

$p (z) = z 3 - 1$ , a=1
$p (z) = z 3 - 1$ , a=2
$p (z) = z 4 - 1$ , a=1
$p (z) = z 4 - 1$ , a=2
$p (z) = z 5 - 1$ , a=1
$p (z) = z 5 - 1$ , a=2
$p (z) = z 6 - 1$ , a=1
$p (z) = z 7 - 1$ , a=1
$p (z) = z 8 - 1$ , a=1
$p (z) = z 10 - 1$ , a=1

Other fractals where potential and trigonometric functions are multiplied. $p (z) = z n *Sin(z) - 1$

$p (z) = z 2 *Sin(Z) - 1$ , a=1
$p (z) = z 2 *Sin(Z) - 1$ , a=1 (zoom)
$p (z) = z 3 *Sin(Z) - 1$ , a=1
$p (z) = z 4 *Sin(Z) - 1$ , a=1
$p (z) = z 4 *Sin(Z) - 1$ , a=1 (zoom)
$p (z) = z 5 *Sin(Z) - 1$ , a=1
$p (z) = z 6 *Sin(Z) - 1$ , a=1
$p (z) = z 6 *Sin(Z) - 1$ , a=1 (zoom)

Nova fractal

The Nova fractal invented in the mid 1990s by Paul Derbyshire,^[2]^[3] is a generalization of the Newton fractal with the addition of a value $c$ at each step:^[4]

z_{n+1}=z_{n}-a{\frac {p(z_{n})}{p'(z_{n})}}+c=G(a,c,z)

The "Julia" variant of the Nova fractal keeps $c$ constant over the image and initializes $z 0$ to the pixel coordinates. The "Mandelbrot" variant of the Nova fractal initializes $c$ to the pixel coordinates and sets $z 0$ to a critical point, where^[5]

{\frac {\partial }{\partial z}}G(a,c,z)=0.

Commonly-used polynomials like $p (z) = z 3 - 1$ or $p (z) = (z - 1) 3$ lead to a critical point at $z = 1$ .

$Animated "Julia" Nova fractal for p(z) = z3 − 1 with c going from −1 to 1, colored by root reached.$

Animated "Julia" Nova fractal for $p (z) = z 3 - 1$ with $c$ going from −1 to 1, colored by root reached.
$Animated "Julia" Nova fractal for p(z) = z3 − 1 with c = 1/2eiφ and φ going from 0 to 2π, colored by root reached.$

Animated "Julia" Nova fractal for $p (z) = z 3 - 1$ with $c = 1 / 2 e iφ$ and $φ$ going from 0 to 2 $π$ , colored by root reached.

Implementation

In order to implement the Newton fractal, it is necessary to have a starting function as well as its derivative function:

{\begin{aligned}f(z)&=z^{3}-1\\f'(z)&=3z^{2}\end{aligned}}

The three roots of the function are

z=1,\ -{\tfrac {1}{2}}+{\tfrac {\sqrt {3}}{2}}i,\ -{\tfrac {1}{2}}-{\tfrac {\sqrt {3}}{2}}i

The above-defined functions can be translated in pseudocode as follows:

//z^3-1 
float2 Function (float2 z)
{
	return cpow(z, 3) - float2(1, 0); //cpow is an exponential function for complex numbers
}

//3*z^2
float2 Derivative (float2 z)
{
	return 3 * cmul(z, z); //cmul is a function that handles multiplication of complex numbers
}

It is now just a matter of implementing the Newton method using the given functions.

float2 roots[3] = //Roots (solutions) of the polynomial
{
	float2(1, 0), 
	float2(-.5, sqrt(3)/2), 
	float2(-.5, -sqrt(3)/2)
};
	
color colors[3] =  //Assign a color for each root
{
    red,
    green,
    blue
}

For each pixel (x, y) on the target, do:
{
	zx = scaled x coordinate of pixel (scaled to lie in the Mandelbrot X scale (-2.5, 1))
    zy = scaled y coordinate of pixel (scaled to lie in the Mandelbrot Y scale (-2, 1))

    float2 z = float2(zx, zy); //z is originally set to the pixel coordinates

	for (int iteration = 0;
	     iteration < maxIteration;
	     iteration++;)
	{
		z -= cdiv(Function(z), Derivative(z)); //cdiv is a function for dividing complex numbers

        float tolerance = 0.000001;
        
		for (int i = 0; i < roots.Length; i++)
		{
		    float2 difference = z - roots[i];
		    
			//If the current iteration is close enough to a root, color the pixel.
			if (abs(difference.x) < tolerance && abs (difference.y) < tolerance)
			{
				return colors[i]; //Return the color corresponding to the root
			}
		}
		
    }
    
    return black; //If no solution is found
}

References

^ Simon Tatham. "Fractals derived from Newton–Raphson".
^ Damien M. Jones. "class Standard_NovaMandel (Ultra Fractal formula reference)".
^ Damien M. Jones. "dmj's nova fractals 1995-6".
^ Michael Condron. "Relaxed Newton's Method and the Nova Fractal".
^ Frederik Slijkerman. "Ultra Fractal Manual: Nova (Julia, Mandelbrot)".

Sir Isaac Newton
Publications	Fluxions (1671) De Motu (1684) Principia (1687) Opticks (1704) Queries (1704) Arithmetica (1707) De Analysi (1711)
Other writings	Quaestiones (1661–1665) "standing on the shoulders of giants" (1675) Notes on the Jewish Temple (c. 1680) "General Scholium" (1713; "hypotheses non fingo" ) Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) Corruptions of Scripture (1754)
Contributions	Calculus fluxion Impact depth Inertia Newton disc Newton polygon Newton–Okounkov body Newton's reflector Newtonian telescope Newton scale Newton's metal Spectrum Structural coloration
Newtonianism	Bucket argument Newton's inequalities Newton's law of cooling Newton's law of universal gravitation post-Newtonian expansion parameterized gravitational constant Newton–Cartan theory Schrödinger–Newton equation Newton's laws of motion Kepler's laws Newtonian dynamics Newton's method in optimization Apollonius's problem truncated Newton method Gauss–Newton algorithm Newton's rings Newton's theorem about ovals Newton–Pepys problem Newtonian potential Newtonian fluid Classical mechanics Corpuscular theory of light Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy Newton's notation Rotating spheres Newton's cannonball Newton–Cotes formulas Newton's method generalized Gauss–Newton method Newton fractal Newton's identities Newton polynomial Newton's theorem of revolving orbits Newton–Euler equations Newton number kissing number problem Newton's quotient Parallelogram of force Newton–Puiseux theorem Absolute space and time Luminiferous aether Newtonian series table
Personal life	Woolsthorpe Manor (birthplace) Cranbury Park (home) Early life Later life Apple tree Religious views Occult studies Scientific Revolution Copernican Revolution
Relations	Catherine Barton (niece) John Conduitt (nephew-in-law) Isaac Barrow (professor) William Clarke (mentor) Benjamin Pulleyn (tutor) John Keill (disciple) William Stukeley (friend) William Jones (friend) Abraham de Moivre (friend)
Depictions	Newton by Blake (monotype) Newton by Paolozzi (sculpture) Isaac Newton Gargoyle Astronomers Monument
Namesake	Newton (unit) Newton's cradle Isaac Newton Institute Isaac Newton Medal Isaac Newton Telescope Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes XMM-Newton Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form Statal Institute of Higher Education Isaac Newton Newton International Fellowship
Categories	Isaac Newton

Fractals
Characteristics	Fractal dimensions Assouad Box-counting Higuchi Correlation Hausdorff Packing Topological Recursion Self-similarity
Iterated function system	Barnsley fern Cantor set Koch snowflake Menger sponge Sierpinski carpet Sierpinski triangle Apollonian gasket Fibonacci word Space-filling curve Blancmange curve De Rham curve Minkowski Dragon curve Hilbert curve Koch curve Lévy C curve Moore curve Peano curve Sierpiński curve Z-order curve String T-square n-flake Vicsek fractal Hexaflake Gosper curve Pythagoras tree Weierstrass function
Strange attractor	Multifractal system
L-system	Fractal canopy Space-filling curve H tree
Escape-time fractals	Burning Ship fractal Julia set Filled Newton fractal Douady rabbit Lyapunov fractal Mandelbrot set Misiurewicz point Multibrot set Newton fractal Tricorn Mandelbox Mandelbulb
Rendering techniques	Buddhabrot Orbit trap Pickover stalk
Random fractals	Brownian motion Brownian tree Brownian motor Fractal landscape Lévy flight Percolation theory Self-avoiding walk
People	Michael Barnsley Georg Cantor Bill Gosper Felix Hausdorff Desmond Paul Henry Gaston Julia Helge von Koch Paul Lévy Aleksandr Lyapunov Benoit Mandelbrot Hamid Naderi Yeganeh Lewis Fry Richardson Wacław Sierpiński
Other	"How Long Is the Coast of Britain?" Coastline paradox Fractal art List of fractals by Hausdorff dimension The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982 book) The Beauty of Fractals (1986 book) Chaos: Making a New Science (1987 book) Kaleidoscope Chaos theory

Informatics Educational Institutions & Programs

Generalization of Newton fractals

Nova fractal

Implementation

See also

References

Further reading