Are You Able to Solve It? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Shaped the Modern Globe
There are many candidates for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that title should go to a mechanised sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a modest trading ship necessitated around 10 sawyers working for three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber might be produced within seven days.”
Owing to their speedy automated cutter, which converted logs into boards using almost no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels faster than anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues Dávila, was “mankind’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part converted the rotary movement into vertical motion to power the saw. Another component changed the rotary movement into a lateral motion advancing the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the wood ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Each element was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts in order that they acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending motion and advancing on every return stroke. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic components.”
Which brings us to the current challenge. I’d like for you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine that turns rotary movement into vertical motion. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing into which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so that the components don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s most impactful creation.
