Topology of the Scherk surface?

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The Scherk surface in $\mathbb{R}^3$ is defined by the equation$$e^z\,\cos(x) - \cos(y) = 0.$$What is the topology of the Scherk surface, i.e. what is a description of it as a surface of some genus with some number of punctures or boundary components?

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Scherk's surface has infinite genus and one end. You can see that it has infinite genus because when you look down on it you see infinitely many holes. If you remove a large compact set the complement has one unbounded component so it has one end. It is a theorem of Meeks and I, that any two complete properly embedded minimal surfaces with one end and the same genus are topologically equivalent in the sense that there is a homeomorphism of $\mathbb{R}^3$ that takes one to the other. We also gave a classification of minimal surfaces with more than one end.