Are You Able to Solve It? That Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Shaped our Modern Globe
One can find many contenders for the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The circular axle. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, however, that honor belongs to the automated sawmill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a modest merchant vessel required around 10 sawyers laboring over three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber could be produced within seven days.”
Owing to this rapid mechanical cutter, that turned timber into planks with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct ships more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial and cultural supremacy in Europe and the globe.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, argues the writer, represented “humanity’s first true industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component transformed the circular motion to vertical motion for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine them so they acted within a perfectly controlled sequence, sawing on every descending motion and advancing with each upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever use of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. The task is you to reinvent a key the fundamental ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine which converts rotary motion into vertical motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the rods will fit snugly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the parts do not collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the planet’s most impactful creation.
