Are You Able to Crack It? The Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Shaped our Modern World
One can find many contenders to claim the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that title belongs to the automated sawmill invented through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, constructing a modest trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers working for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered lumber mills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be manufactured within seven days.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, which turned logs into boards with almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to build vessels faster than anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands naval, financial as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the world.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part transformed its rotary motion into up-and-down motion to power the saw. Another component changed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the log to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log forward a measured step each stroke.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine acted within a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing with each descending stroke while moving with each return motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us up to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas behind this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism that turns circular motion into vertical motion. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve through which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s most impactful creation.
