Are You Able to Crack It? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Forged our Contemporary Globe
There are many contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, though, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before automated sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required approximately 10 sawyers laboring for 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of processed timber could be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to their speedy mechanical cutter, which converted logs into planks with virtually no human effort, the Dutch could construct vessels faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as artistic dominance across Europe and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component transformed the rotary movement into up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component transformed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the log forward one precise increment per cycle.
“Each element was modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them so the machine acted within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each downward stroke and moving with each upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts rotary motion to vertical action. Your available these items only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or housing through which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s most impactful creation.
