Are You Able to Solve This? The Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Modern Globe
One can find numerous candidates for the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, however, that title should go to the automated sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a simple trading ship required around ten sawyers working over 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of processed timber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Thanks to their rapid automated cutter, which turned logs into planks with almost no human effort, Dutch builders could construct ships more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, financial and artistic dominance in Europe and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true factory machine.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part converted the rotary motion to up-and-down action for the saw. Another component changed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log forward a measured step each stroke.
“Each element was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine them in order that they operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every downward stroke and advancing on every return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us up to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent one of the fundamental concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns rotary motion to up-and-down motion. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve into which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so that the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s most impactful invention.
