Can You Solve This? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Shaped the Modern Globe
One can find numerous contenders for the title of “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that title should go to the mechanised timber mill conceived by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a simple trading ship necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks working for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of cut lumber might be produced within a week.”
Owing to their speedy automated cutter, that turned logs into boards with virtually no human effort, Dutch builders could construct vessels more quickly compared to any other nation, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, financial and cultural dominance in Europe and the world.
The Original True Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s first authentic industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part transformed the circular motion into up-and-down motion for the saw. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning movement into a lateral movement feeding the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood forward a measured step per cycle.
“Every component was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to integrate them so they acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every descending motion and advancing on every return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
Which leads us up to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts circular motion to up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve through which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s greatest invention.
