Are You Able to Solve This? The Overlooked Dutch Invention That Shaped the Contemporary World
There are many contenders for the title of “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, though, that title belongs to the automated sawmill invented by Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest during 1593.
“Before mechanised sawing, constructing a modest merchant vessel required around ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-powered sawmills, an identical quantity of processed timber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to this rapid mechanical saw, which converted timber into boards using virtually no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build ships more quickly than any other nation, an advantage that unleashed a century of Dutch maritime, economic as well as cultural supremacy across Europe and the world.
The Original Genuine Manufacturing Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends Dávila, represented “humanity’s first true industrial machine.” A windmill rotated a wheel. One component converted its rotary motion into up-and-down action to power the cutting blade. Another component changed that same rotary movement into a lateral movement advancing the timber to the cutter. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward one precise increment per stroke.
“Every component was modest by itself. The Dutchman’s brilliance lay in how to combine them in order that they acted in a perfectly controlled order, cutting on every descending stroke and moving with each upward motion. This constituted an astonishingly intelligent use of basic components.”
Which brings us to today’s challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic ideas underpinning Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns circular movement into up-and-down motion. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pins. Two bars. A “guide”, which is a tube or housing into which a single the rods will fit snugly. (Assume you can put things on a stand, so the parts don’t fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK featuring the solution.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Instead, please suggest (less celebrated) candidates as the planet’s most impactful creation.
