Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped our Contemporary World
One can find many candidates to claim the title of “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a new book, though, that title belongs to a automated sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, building a modest merchant vessel required around 10 lumberjacks laboring over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be manufactured within a week.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical saw, that converted timber into boards using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could construct ships more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that sparked a century of Netherlands naval, financial as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. A single part converted the rotary motion into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. Another component changed the spinning movement into a lateral movement advancing the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the wood ahead one precise increment each stroke.
“Every component seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine these parts in order that they operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward motion and moving on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
Which brings us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism which converts circular motion into vertical motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so that the parts don’t collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s most impactful invention.
