Can You Solve It? The Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Forged our Contemporary World
There are many candidates for the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that title should go to the mechanised timber mill invented through Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, constructing a simple trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, the same quantity of processed timber might be produced within seven days.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical cutter, that turned logs to boards using almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic and artistic supremacy across the continent and the world.
The Original True Industrial Device
The inventor's sawmill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s first authentic factory machine.” A wind turbine turned a wheel. One component converted its circular motion into up-and-down motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed that same spinning movement into a sideway’s movement advancing the timber to the blade. A ratchet system moved the log ahead one precise increment per cycle.
“Every component was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius was to combine them in order that they operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each descending motion and advancing with each return motion. This constituted a remarkably clever use of basic components.”
Which brings us to the current puzzle. I’d like for you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning this historic machine.
Round and Up
Design a mechanism which converts circular motion into up-and-down action. You have these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve through which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Rather, feel free to suggest (non obvious) contenders as the world’s greatest creation.
