Decomposition of the height function of Scherk's first surface. (Q5950586)

Scherk's first surfaces form a one-parameter family of complete doubly periodic minimal surfaces. Taking appropriate limits in this family one obtains the helicoid. In this paper, using identities satisfied by the arc tangent function, it is proved that any Scherk's first surface can be decomposed either into an infinite superposition of dilated helicoids (Theorem~1) or into a finite superposition of dilated Scherk's first surfaces (Theorem~2).