Are You Able to Crack It? That Overlooked Dutch Invention That Shaped our Modern World
One can find many candidates for the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that honor belongs to the automated sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a modest trading ship required around ten lumberjacks working over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber might be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical cutter, that turned logs into planks with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to build vessels faster compared to any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy in the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s initial true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part converted the rotary movement into vertical motion to power the saw. Another component transformed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log ahead a measured step per cycle.
“Every component was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each downward stroke and advancing with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine which converts rotary movement into vertical action. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or sleeve through which a single the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the components do not collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK with the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.
