Can You Solve It? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Forged our Modern World
There are many contenders for the designation as “world’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, however, that title belongs to the mechanised timber mill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, building a simple trading ship required approximately 10 sawyers laboring for three months,” writes the author. “With wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of processed timber might be produced within a week.”
Owing to this rapid mechanical cutter, that turned timber to boards with virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could construct vessels faster than anyone else, which sparked a century of Dutch naval, economic as well as artistic supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first true industrial apparatus.” A windmill rotated a wheel. One component converted its rotary motion to up-and-down action for the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the log toward the blade. A ratchet system shifted the log ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Every component was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate them so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing with each downward motion and advancing with each upward motion. It was a remarkably clever use of fundamental components.”
A fact that brings us up to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns circular motion to up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve through which a single the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the answer.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders for the planet’s most impactful invention.
