Can You Solve This? The Overlooked Dutch Invention That Forged our Modern Globe
One can find many contenders for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, however, that honor belongs to the automated timber mill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel required approximately 10 lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to this rapid mechanical cutter, that turned logs into boards using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders could build vessels faster than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial as well as artistic dominance in the continent and the world.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s first true industrial machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component converted the rotary movement into up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component changed that same spinning motion into a lateral motion feeding the timber toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward a measured step each cycle.
“Every component was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine these parts so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every descending stroke while moving on every return stroke. It was a remarkably intelligent use of basic components.”
A fact that brings us to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent a key the basic ideas behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns rotary motion to up-and-down motion. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s greatest creation.