Can You Solve It? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation That Shaped the Modern Globe
One can find many contenders to claim the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, though, that title should go to a automated sawmill invented through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” writes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be produced in less than a week.”
Owing to their rapid automated cutter, that turned logs to boards with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build ships more quickly compared to any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial as well as cultural dominance in Europe and the world.
The Original True Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, was “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part transformed its circular motion into vertical motion to power the saw. Another component changed the rotary motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber to the blade. A ratchet system moved the log forward a measured step each cycle.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled order, cutting on every downward motion and moving on every upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever application of fundamental parts.”
A fact that brings us to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism that turns circular movement to vertical motion. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so the parts don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s greatest invention.
