Can You Crack It? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Forged our Contemporary Globe
One can find many contenders to claim the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, though, that honor should go to a mechanised timber mill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, constructing a simple trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring over 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be produced within seven days.”
Thanks to their speedy mechanical saw, which converted logs into planks with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct ships more quickly than any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands naval, economic as well as cultural dominance in Europe and the world.
The Original True Industrial Device
The inventor's lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed the circular motion to up-and-down motion for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning movement into a lateral movement feeding the timber toward the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead one precise increment per stroke.
“Each element seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine them in order that they operated in a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each descending motion and advancing on every return stroke. This constituted a remarkably intelligent use of basic components.”
A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the basic ideas behind this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine which converts rotary movement to vertical motion. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or housing into which a single the bars will fit snugly. (Assume it is possible to put things on a stand, so that the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) contenders as the planet’s greatest creation.
