Are You Able to Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped the Contemporary World
One can find many candidates for the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that honor belongs to a automated sawmill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a modest trading ship necessitated around 10 sawyers laboring over three months,” notes the author. “With wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Owing to this rapid mechanical saw, which converted timber into boards with almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct ships more quickly compared to any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial and cultural dominance across the continent and the globe.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s first authentic industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component converted its rotary movement into up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. Another component changed the rotary movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the log toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the log forward one precise increment each stroke.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to combine them so the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every downward motion while advancing on every return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent a key the basic concepts behind this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts rotary movement into up-and-down motion. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing through which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s greatest invention.