Are You Able to Solve This? The Overlooked Netherlands Invention That Shaped our Modern Globe
One can find numerous contenders for the title of “planet’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, however, that honor belongs to a automated timber mill invented by Dutchman Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, building a simple trading ship necessitated approximately 10 sawyers working for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of cut lumber could be produced in less than a week.”
Thanks to their speedy mechanical saw, that converted logs to boards with almost no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct vessels faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked a century of Dutch naval, economic as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.
The First True Industrial Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues Dávila, was “mankind’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine turned a gear. A single part transformed the rotary movement to up-and-down action for the cutting blade. Another component changed that same rotary movement into a lateral motion feeding the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the log forward a measured step per stroke.
“Every component was simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts in order that the machine acted within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting with each descending motion and advancing on every return motion. It was an astonishingly intelligent use of fundamental parts.”
A fact that leads us to the current challenge. The task is you to reimagine a key the basic concepts underpinning Corneliszoon’s machine.
Round and Up
Design a machine that turns rotary motion to vertical action. You have these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which a single the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a stand, so the components don’t collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) candidates for the world’s greatest creation.