Can You Crack It? The Forgotten Dutch Invention Which Shaped our Modern World
There are numerous contenders for the designation as “planet’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine.
According to a new book, though, that honor should go to the mechanised sawmill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, building a simple trading ship necessitated approximately ten lumberjacks working over three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, the same amount of cut lumber might be produced within seven days.”
Thanks to their rapid automated saw, which turned timber to planks with almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to construct vessels faster than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial as well as cultural supremacy in the continent and the globe.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
The inventor's sawmill, argues the writer, was “humanity’s first authentic industrial machine.” A windmill turned a gear. A single part converted its circular movement to vertical action to power the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the spinning motion into a lateral movement feeding the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log ahead one precise increment each stroke.
“Every component seemed modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s brilliance lay in how to combine these parts so they acted in a perfectly controlled order, sawing with each descending motion while advancing on every upward stroke. It was an astonishingly intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
Which brings us up to the current puzzle. The task is you to reimagine one of the fundamental concepts behind this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a machine which converts rotary movement to vertical action. Your available these components only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, that is a cylinder or sleeve into which one of the bars can slide perfectly. (Assume you can mount components on a stand, so the components do not collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates for the world’s most impactful creation.
