Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2019 / Paper 1 / 19 / b / iii / Solution

Use the Exact Newton error identity for a quadratic to expose the cancellation without a long quotient expansion. Put $e_k=x_k-x_{\ast }$. Since $f(x_{\ast })=0$, direct expansion givesFrom part (ii), $e_1=\frac{1}{2}{\epsilon }^2+O({\epsilon }^3)$ and $x_1-\epsilon \to 1$. It follows thatThus the stronger result isThe vanishing lower-order terms are a concrete instance of quadratic convergence: to leading order, this step squares the previous error.