Are You Able to Solve It? The Forgotten Dutch Invention That Shaped our Modern Globe
There are numerous contenders for the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a new book, however, that title belongs to the mechanised timber mill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest trading ship necessitated approximately 10 lumberjacks working over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to this rapid automated cutter, that turned logs to planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could construct ships faster than any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, economic and artistic dominance across the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s first true industrial apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed the circular motion to vertical motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed that same spinning motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the log to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the wood ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Each element was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine them in order that the machine operated within a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each descending stroke while advancing on every return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism that turns rotary movement into up-and-down motion. You have these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s greatest creation.
