Can You Crack This? The Overlooked Dutch Creation That Shaped the Contemporary Globe
There are many contenders for the designation as “world’s greatest innovation.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that title belongs to the automated sawmill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest trading ship required approximately 10 lumberjacks working over three months,” notes the author. “With wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to this speedy mechanical saw, that converted timber to planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels more quickly than anyone else, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, financial and artistic dominance across the continent and the world.
The Original True Industrial Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s first true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part transformed the circular motion to vertical action to power the saw. Another component changed the rotary motion into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the log ahead a measured step each cycle.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts so they operated in a precisely synchronized order, sawing on every descending stroke and advancing with each return stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of basic parts.”
Which brings us up to the current puzzle. The task is for you to reinvent a key the fundamental concepts behind this historic invention.
Round and Up
Design a machine which converts rotary movement into up-and-down motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.)
I’ll be back later today UK time with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please suggest (non obvious) contenders as the world’s most impactful creation.
