Can You Solve It? That Overlooked Dutch Creation Which Shaped our Modern Globe
One can find many candidates to claim the title of “world’s greatest innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, though, that title should go to a automated sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Prior to mechanised cutting, building a modest merchant vessel required around ten sawyers laboring over three months,” notes the author. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to their rapid automated cutter, that turned logs into boards using virtually no manual labor, Dutch builders could build ships faster than any other nation, which sparked one hundred years of Netherlands maritime, economic and artistic supremacy across Europe and the world.
The Original Genuine Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, argues the writer, was “mankind’s initial true factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a wheel. A single part transformed the circular motion into vertical motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism transformed that same rotary motion into a sideway’s movement feeding the timber toward the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward a measured step per stroke.
“Every component seemed simple on its own. The Dutchman’s genius lay in how to integrate these parts so the machine operated in a precisely synchronized order, cutting with each descending stroke while moving on every upward motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent application of fundamental parts.”
Which leads us to the current challenge. I’d like for you to reimagine one of the basic concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns circular movement to vertical motion. You have these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods can slide snugly. (Consider that you can put things on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)
The solution returns later today UK time featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (non obvious) contenders for the world’s greatest creation.
