Are You Able to Solve It? The Forgotten Dutch Creation Which Shaped the Modern World
There are numerous contenders to claim the designation as “world’s greatest invention.” The circular axle. The movable type. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that title belongs to a automated timber mill conceived by Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, constructing a modest trading ship required around ten lumberjacks laboring for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “With wind-driven lumber mills, the same quantity of cut lumber could be produced in less than seven days.”
Owing to their rapid automated saw, which turned timber into planks with almost no manual labor, the Dutch were able to construct ships faster than any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic and cultural supremacy in the continent and the world.
The First True Industrial Machine
The inventor's sawmill, contends Dávila, was “mankind’s first true factory apparatus.” A wind turbine rotated a wheel. A single part transformed its rotary movement to vertical action to power the saw. A separate mechanism changed the rotary motion into a lateral motion feeding the timber to the blade. A geared mechanism moved the wood ahead one precise increment each stroke.
“Each element seemed simple on its own. Corneliszoon’s genius lay in how to integrate them in order that the machine operated within a perfectly controlled sequence, cutting on every descending motion and advancing with each return motion. It was an astonishingly clever application of basic components.”
Which brings us up to today’s challenge. I’d like for you to reimagine a key the basic ideas behind Corneliszoon’s invention.
Round and Up
Construct a mechanism that turns rotary motion into up-and-down action. Your available these components exclusively: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which one of the bars will fit snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so the parts don’t collapse.)
I’ll be back later today UK time with the solution.
In the interim, NO SPOILERS. Instead, feel free to suggest (non obvious) candidates for the planet’s most impactful invention.
