Can You Solve This? That Forgotten Netherlands Invention Which Forged our Contemporary World
One can find many contenders to claim the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a recent publication, however, that honor should go to the automated timber mill conceived through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to automated sawing, building a simple merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks laboring over 90 days,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered sawmills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be manufactured within a week.”
Owing to their rapid automated cutter, that turned logs into planks with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could construct vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, which unleashed a century of Netherlands naval, financial and artistic supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, represented “mankind’s initial true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a gear. One component transformed its circular motion into vertical action for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the rotary movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system moved the wood forward one precise increment each cycle.
“Every component was simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to combine them in order that the machine operated in a perfectly controlled order, cutting on every downward stroke and moving with each return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental components.”
A fact that leads us up to today’s puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the basic concepts behind Corneliszoon’s machine.
Circular to Vertical
Construct a mechanism that turns rotary movement into up-and-down motion. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a tube or sleeve into which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so the components do not collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the answer.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.
