Are You Able to Solve This? That Overlooked Dutch Invention That Forged our Contemporary World
One can find many candidates to claim the designation as “planet’s most significant invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that title belongs to the mechanised sawmill invented by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before automated cutting, building a simple merchant vessel necessitated around ten sawyers laboring for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-powered lumber mills, an identical amount of processed timber might be manufactured in less than seven days.”
Owing to their rapid mechanical saw, which converted timber to boards using almost no human effort, Dutch builders were able to build ships more quickly compared to any other nation, which unleashed a century of Netherlands maritime, economic and cultural dominance across the continent and the globe.
The Original True Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s sawmill, contends the writer, was “humanity’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. One component transformed its circular movement into up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the spinning motion into a sideway’s motion advancing the log to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the log forward a measured step per cycle.
“Every component was modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate them in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, sawing on every descending motion and advancing on every upward stroke. This constituted a remarkably clever application of fundamental components.”
Which leads us up to the current challenge. I’d like you to reinvent one of the basic ideas behind this historic machine.
Round and Up
Construct a machine which converts rotary movement into vertical action. Your available these items only: A spinning wheel. Two pins. Two rods. A “sleeve”, that is a cylinder or sleeve through which one of the bars will fit perfectly. (Consider that you can put things on a stand, so the parts don’t collapse.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to propose (less celebrated) candidates as the world’s most impactful invention.
