Are You Able to Solve It? That Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Shaped our Modern Globe
One can find numerous candidates to claim the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, however, that title belongs to the mechanised sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, constructing a modest merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring for three months,” notes the author. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber might be manufactured within a week.”
Thanks to their rapid automated saw, that turned logs to boards using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial as well as artistic dominance in Europe and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s first true industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. One component transformed the rotary motion into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed the rotary motion into a lateral movement feeding the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood forward one precise increment per cycle.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. The Dutchman’s genius was to combine these parts so they acted within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each descending stroke while advancing with each upward motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
A fact that leads us to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism that turns circular motion into vertical action. Your available these items exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing through which a single the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s most impactful invention.