Can You Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Invention That Shaped our Contemporary World
One can find numerous contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, however, that honor should go to the mechanised timber mill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers laboring over 90 days,” notes the author. “With wind-powered sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber might be produced within a week.”
Thanks to this rapid mechanical cutter, that converted timber to planks with almost no human effort, the Dutch could build ships faster than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as artistic supremacy across the continent and the globe.
The Original True Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends Dávila, was “humanity’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component converted the rotary movement into up-and-down motion to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber toward the blade. A ratchet system moved the log ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Each element seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each descending stroke while advancing with each return stroke. It was an astonishingly clever use of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic ideas behind this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts rotary movement to up-and-down action. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve through which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s most impactful invention.