Can You Solve This? That Forgotten Netherlands Creation Which Shaped the Contemporary Globe
There are many candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The circular axle. The printing press. The steam engine.
As per a recent publication, however, that honor should go to the automated timber mill invented by Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Prior to mechanised sawing, building a modest trading ship necessitated approximately ten sawyers laboring over three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical saw, that converted timber to boards using almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly compared to anyone else, an advantage that sparked one hundred years of Dutch maritime, financial and cultural supremacy across the continent and the world.
The First Genuine Manufacturing Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends the writer, was “mankind’s first true industrial apparatus.” A windmill turned a wheel. A single part transformed its rotary motion into vertical motion to power the saw. A separate mechanism transformed the rotary motion into a lateral movement advancing the timber to the cutter. A ratchet system shifted the wood forward a measured step each cycle.
“Each element seemed simple by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate these parts in order that they operated within a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every downward stroke and advancing on every upward stroke. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent application of basic components.”
Which leads us up to today’s challenge. The task is for you to reimagine one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism that turns circular movement into up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two bars. A “sleeve”, that is a tube or sleeve into which a single the rods can slide perfectly. (Assume you can put things on a base, so that the components do not collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Rather, please propose (non obvious) contenders as the world’s greatest creation.
