Are You Able to Solve This? The Overlooked Netherlands Invention Which Shaped the Modern World
There are numerous contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, however, that honor should go to a automated timber mill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, building a modest trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers laboring over 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to their speedy mechanical saw, which turned timber to boards with virtually no human effort, the Dutch could construct ships more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, economic as well as artistic dominance in the continent and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s first true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. A single part transformed the rotary movement into up-and-down motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed the spinning movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood forward a measured step per stroke.
“Every component was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine them so the machine acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every descending stroke and advancing on every upward stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental components.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine which converts circular movement into up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a base, so the parts do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s greatest creation.
