Are You Able to Solve This? The Forgotten Dutch Invention Which Forged the Modern World
One can find many contenders to claim the title of “world’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, though, that honor should go to a mechanised sawmill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a modest trading ship required approximately ten sawyers working over 90 days,” notes the author. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of processed timber might be manufactured within a week.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical saw, which converted logs into boards with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. A single part converted its circular motion to up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary movement into a lateral motion feeding the log toward the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward a measured step per stroke.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate them in order that they acted in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every descending motion while advancing on every upward stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of basic parts.”
Which leads us to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism that turns circular movement into vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates for the planet’s most impactful invention.
