Can You Crack This? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention That Forged our Contemporary World
One can find many contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, however, that title should go to the mechanised sawmill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a simple trading ship required approximately ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber could be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical cutter, that turned logs to boards using almost no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic as well as artistic dominance across Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s initial authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. One component converted the rotary motion into vertical motion for the saw. Another component changed that same rotary movement into a lateral motion advancing the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate them so they acted in a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every downward stroke while advancing with each return stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
Which brings us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns circular motion into vertical motion. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or sleeve through which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) contenders as the world’s greatest creation.
