Can You Solve This? The Overlooked Dutch Invention Which Forged the Modern World
There are many candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that title should go to the mechanised timber mill conceived through Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before automated cutting, building a modest trading ship necessitated around 10 lumberjacks laboring over three months,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be produced within seven days.”
Owing to their rapid automated saw, that converted logs into planks using virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels faster than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. One component transformed the circular movement to vertical motion for the saw. A separate mechanism changed that same rotary movement into a lateral movement feeding the log to the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood ahead a measured step each stroke.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts so the machine operated within a precisely synchronized order, sawing with each descending stroke and advancing with each upward motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
Which brings us to the current challenge. The task is you to reinvent a key the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns rotary motion into vertical motion. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or housing into which one of the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so the components don’t fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the solution.
Meanwhile, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) contenders as the world’s greatest creation.
