Are You Able to Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Shaped our Contemporary World
There are numerous candidates to claim the designation as “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, however, that honor belongs to a automated sawmill conceived through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated approximately 10 sawyers working for 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of processed timber might be produced within seven days.”
Owing to their rapid automated saw, that turned timber into boards with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build ships faster compared to anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.
The Original Genuine Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s first true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component transformed the rotary motion into up-and-down action for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the wood forward a measured step each cycle.
“Each element was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them in order that the machine acted in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting on every downward motion while advancing on every upward motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental components.”
Which brings us up to today’s puzzle. The task is you to reinvent a key the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine that turns circular movement to up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so the parts do not collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s greatest invention.