Can You Solve It? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Modern Globe
One can find many contenders for the designation as “world’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, though, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, building a modest trading ship required around ten sawyers laboring for three months,” writes the author. “With wind-powered lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to this speedy automated saw, that converted timber to planks using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component converted the rotary movement into vertical motion for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary movement into a lateral movement advancing the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step per cycle.
“Each element was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts so they acted in a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing on every descending stroke and moving on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us to the current challenge. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the basic concepts behind this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism which converts circular motion into vertical motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so that the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful creation.
