Faraday wave
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Faraday waves, also known as Faraday ripples, are nonlinear standing waves that appear on liquids enclosed by a vibrating receptacle. They are named after Michael Faraday, who first described them in an appendix to an article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1831.
If a layer of liquid is placed on top of a vertically oscillating piston, a pattern of standing waves appears which oscillates at half the driving frequency. These waves can take the form of stripes, close-packed hexagons, or even squares or quasiperiodic patterns. Faraday waves are commonly observed as fine stripes on the surface of wine in a wineglass that is ringing like a bell. Faraday waves also explain the 'fountain' phenomenon on a singing bowl.