Can You Solve It? The Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped our Contemporary World
There are numerous contenders for the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that title belongs to a mechanised sawmill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers working over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of cut lumber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Thanks to this speedy automated saw, that turned logs to planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build ships more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands naval, economic and cultural supremacy in Europe and the world.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s first true industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. A single part converted the rotary movement into up-and-down motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine these parts so the machine operated in a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each descending motion while moving with each return motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”
Which brings us to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts circular motion to vertical action. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so the components do not fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates as the world’s greatest invention.
