Can You Solve This? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation Which Shaped our Modern Globe
One can find many contenders to claim the title of “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
As per a recent publication, however, that title belongs to a automated timber mill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, constructing a simple merchant vessel necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks working over three months,” notes the author. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to their rapid automated cutter, that converted timber to planks using virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch naval, financial as well as cultural supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, represented “mankind’s first authentic industrial machine.” A windmill turned a gear. One component transformed its circular motion into vertical action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Each element was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to integrate these parts in order that the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending motion and moving on every upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly clever application of basic parts.”
A fact that brings us to the current challenge. The task is for you to reinvent one of the fundamental ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts circular motion to up-and-down action. Your available these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or housing into which one of the rods will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to put things on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK time featuring the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) candidates for the world’s most impactful invention.
