Can You Solve This? The Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped our Contemporary World
One can find many contenders for the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that honor should go to the mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a modest merchant vessel necessitated around 10 lumberjacks working for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical saw, which turned timber into boards using almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct ships more quickly than anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial as well as artistic dominance across the continent and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s initial authentic industrial machine.” A windmill turned a gear. One component transformed the circular movement into up-and-down action to power the saw. Another component changed that same rotary motion into a lateral motion feeding the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead one precise increment each stroke.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts so the machine acted in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each descending stroke and advancing with each upward stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of basic components.”
A fact that brings us to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns circular motion into vertical action. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so that the components do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful creation.