Can You Crack It? That Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Shaped our Modern Globe
One can find many candidates for the title of “planet’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
As per a new book, however, that title should go to the mechanised timber mill invented through Dutch inventor Cornelis Corneliszoon during 1593.
“Before mechanised cutting, building a simple merchant vessel required around 10 sawyers laboring for three months,” notes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical quantity of cut lumber might be produced within a week.”
Owing to this speedy automated saw, that converted timber to planks using virtually no human effort, the Dutch were able to construct vessels more quickly compared to any other nation, which unleashed one hundred years of Dutch maritime, economic as well as artistic supremacy in Europe and the globe.
The First Genuine Industrial Machine
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, contends the writer, represented “humanity’s initial authentic factory apparatus.” A windmill rotated a gear. One component converted the rotary movement into up-and-down motion for the cutting blade. A separate mechanism changed the rotary movement into a sideway’s motion feeding the log to the blade. A geared mechanism shifted the log forward a measured step each cycle.
“Each element seemed modest on its own. Corneliszoon’s brilliance was to combine them in order that they acted in a perfectly controlled order, sawing on every descending motion and moving with each upward motion. This constituted a remarkably intelligent use of fundamental components.”
Which brings us to today’s puzzle. The task is for you to reimagine one of the fundamental ideas behind this historic invention.
Round and Up
Construct a machine that turns circular movement into vertical action. You have these components only: A rotating disc. Two pegs. Two rods. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or housing through which a single the rods will fit perfectly. (Assume it is possible to mount components on a stand, so that the parts do not fall down.)
The solution returns at 5pm UK time featuring the answer.
Meanwhile, NO SPOILERS. Rather, feel free to propose (less celebrated) contenders for the world’s most impactful invention.
