Can You Solve It? That Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Forged the Contemporary World
There are many candidates to claim the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a new book, however, that honor should go to the automated timber mill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required approximately 10 sawyers working over 90 days,” writes the author. “With wind-driven sawmills, the same amount of processed timber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to this speedy mechanical saw, that turned logs into boards using almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct ships faster compared to any other nation, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial and cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.
The First True Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “mankind’s initial true industrial machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component transformed the rotary movement to up-and-down action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the rotary motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward one precise increment each cycle.
“Every component was simple by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance was to combine these parts in order that they acted in a perfectly controlled order, cutting on every downward stroke and advancing with each upward stroke. It was a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us up to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the basic concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a machine that turns circular movement to up-and-down motion. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a tube or sleeve into which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so the parts do not collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK featuring the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please propose (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest invention.
