Can You Crack This? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Forged our Contemporary Globe
There are many candidates to claim the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, though, that title should go to the mechanised sawmill invented through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a modest trading ship required around ten sawyers working over three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured within a week.”
Owing to their speedy mechanical saw, which turned timber into boards using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build ships faster compared to any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s first true factory machine.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted its circular motion to up-and-down action to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary movement into a lateral movement feeding the timber to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead one precise increment each cycle.
“Each element seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius was to integrate these parts so they operated in a perfectly controlled order, cutting with each downward motion while moving with each return motion. This constituted a remarkably clever use of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us to the current puzzle. The task is you to reimagine a key the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts circular motion into up-and-down motion. You have these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve into which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s most impactful invention.
