Are You Able to Crack It? That Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Forged our Contemporary Globe
There are many candidates for the title of “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that title belongs to the mechanised timber mill invented through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, building a simple trading ship necessitated around ten sawyers laboring over three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Thanks to this rapid automated saw, that converted logs into boards with almost no manual labor, Dutch builders were able to build vessels more quickly than anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Dutch maritime, economic and artistic dominance in the continent and the globe.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s first authentic industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. A single part converted its rotary movement into up-and-down action to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed the spinning motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to integrate them so they acted within a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each descending motion and moving with each return motion. It was a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental components.”
A fact that leads us up to the current challenge. The task is for you to reimagine a key the fundamental ideas behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine which converts rotary movement into vertical action. You have these items exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or sleeve into which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so that the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK with the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.
