Can You Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Contemporary World
There are numerous candidates to claim the title of “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated cutting, building a modest trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers working over three months,” notes the author. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured within a week.”
Owing to this rapid automated saw, that converted logs to boards using virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct vessels faster than anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic and artistic supremacy in the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s first true industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component converted its circular movement into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. Another component changed that same rotary motion into a lateral movement feeding the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log forward a measured step each stroke.
“Every component seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate them in order that they acted in a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every descending stroke and advancing with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. The task is you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism that turns rotary movement into vertical action. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing through which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so the parts do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) candidates for the world’s most impactful invention.
