Can You Crack This? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Shaped our Contemporary World
There are numerous contenders for the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, however, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten sawyers working over 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to their rapid mechanical saw, which converted timber to planks with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct ships more quickly compared to anyone else, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial as well as cultural supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The First True Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. One component converted the rotary movement to vertical action to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed that same spinning motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead a measured step per stroke.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them so the machine acted in a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each downward motion and advancing on every return motion. It was a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.”
Which leads us up to the current challenge. The task is you to reimagine one of the basic ideas behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism which converts circular movement into vertical motion. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so the components don’t fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates as the world’s greatest creation.
