A SIMPLE-MODEL FOR FARADAY WAVES

We show that the linear-stability analysis of the birth of Faraday wav es on the surface of a fluid is simplified considerably when the fluid container is driven by a triangle wave form rather than by a sine wav e. The calculation is simple enough to use in an undergraduate course on fluid dynamics or nonlinear dynamics. It is also an attractive star ting point for a nonlinear analysis. (C) 1996 American Association of Physics Teachers.